A Sage's Reincarnation
by WindSpiral84
Summary: Read how Naruto changes from the #1 hyperactive knucklehead ninja, to the power full and wise sage of six paths. Rinnegan Naruto (Eventual Godlike)
1. Chapter 1

Naruto stood in the middle of an ice dome with his friend and former teammate in his arms. "Why" Naruto whispered "I hated you... I didn't ask for this, I didn't ask you to save me."

"Your such a loser, I hated you and yet I... I don't know... my body it moved on its own" Sasuke inhaled painfully " My brother, he killed my entire family my dream was to kill him and avenge my clan. Naruto don't let your dream die." A small silence permeated the air and finally Haku spoke,

"He found... a strength he didn't know he had, he found it protecting someone who was precious to him even at the cost of his own life. He was a true shinobi. Is this the first time you've seen a friend die in combat? This is part of what it means to be a shinobi."

"Just shut up," Naruto growled "I hated you Sasuke, and yet..." As Naruto laid Sasuke's sebon covered body to the ground rage filled his mind and a red aura began to appear. **"I'm gonna kill you."** Naruto's instincts took over as he found Haku dashing from one mirror to the next throwing sebon at him.

 **"Turn, strike, dodge that's it boy just a little more." Soon he thought, the boys rage was a perfect outlet he had been waiting in silence for twelve years it felt so good to be in control even if it was this puny boy's body. When all of a sudden he felt something he hadn't felt is years, fear. Somethings stoping my chakra, what is this... it can't be he supposed to be dead.**

"It's good to see your Kurama."

 **"No. Who are you your supposed to be dead."**

"Relax Kurama, I live on in this boy." Said the man clad in white "Hm somethings off about you... that's it of course when the Fourth Hokage sealed you in this child he split the your chakra. Your only a shadow of your former self Kurama." The man floated in thought on 6 black balls. "Kurama I will restore you to your full power on the condition that you will help and guide the boy on his path... on my path."

 **"You mean that he's the one to lead us down the correct path?"**

"Yes Kurama, now before I restore you I must tell you three things, one is that someone is gathering the tailed beasts together with the hopes of resurrecting the ten tails. The second thing is that the seals I put on all of your siblings to keep your chakra separate are weakening, so even if this group fails in resurrecting the ten tails she will still rise. When this happens Kurama you must subdue the beasts impulses and if you are successful your mind will take control of the beast. The third and last thing I must tell you regards the boy, in order for him to walk my path he will have to do two things the first is to conquer his inner hatred, and the second is to find my necklace. I have given the boy a small amount of my chakra so it will respond when he approaches my necklace, but he will need your help to conquer his hatred. Only once he has conquered his hatred will I be able to begin my reincarnation into this boy." The man walked through the bars of the cage and touched Kurama's snout he stepped back and the fox began to grow in size until he was easily taller than the Hokage mountain. The man began to fade as he spoke, "Kurama, my time is up remember what I told you."

 **"I will father," the fox said as a single tear fell down his face."**

Meanwhile Naruto had smashed the mist anbu's face mask to review the boy he met in the woods. "Its you," Naruto said "the boy from the woods."

"Naruto," Haku said "I want you to kill me, I am of no use to Master Zabuza like this."

"What are you talking about, I'm not going to kill you."

"Naruto, I'm was a tool to Zabuza an extension of his will and now I'm useless to him, I'm a broken tool, I deserve to die."

"Are you sure that there isn't another way," Naruto said as he pulled out a kunai and prepared to strike. But as he was about to plunge it into Haku's heart when he heard a sound coming from the battle with Kakashi and Zabuza, it sounded like chirping birds. He looked over as saw lightning in Kakashi's hand and it looked like he was about to kill Zabuza. Then Haku said,

"I'm sorry Naruto I can't die just yet," Haku slammed his fist into Naruto's gut as Naruto fell the last thing he saw was Kakashi's hand plunge into the teens heart, and then he blacked out.

When Naruto woke up and looked around he found himself in a sewer. Looking up he saw several pipes filled with chakra, but to his surprise some were filled with red chakra and some a light blue.

 **"Come here child."**

Naruto followed the voice until ahead of him he saw a large cage with red bars. In the center was a piece of paper with a kanji written on it that said Seal. Upon closer inspection of the cage he began to see an outline of a massive creature with two red eyes with black slits. As he approached the cage he saw that the outline began to take the shape of a massive fox with nine tails swinging behind him. "Nine-tails, if your here than what am I doing here?"

 **"Simple, I called you here," The nine-tails said.**

"But why, I don't what anything to do with you, your nothing but a being of wrath and destruction, your pure evil. So I'll be going now." Naruto turned to leave when he heard the nine-tails laughing behind he turned and asked "and what is so funny."

 **"Oh it's nothing really I'm just wondering how your going to leave when you don't even know where you are."**

A tick mark appeared on his forehead and he whirled around oh yeah and...wait a minute you said you called me here, so you know what this place is?

 **"Yes I know what this place is but I'll only let you leave of you hear what I have to say." Now then if your ready to listen I'll start, to answer your question this place is your mind kit. Now as you probably already know that I'm sealed inside you but what you might not know is that if you die I die and your battle with the ice style user should have opened your eyes to just how powerful some shinobi are and just how far you have to go until you reach their level. Now that I've explained that I have a little proposal for you, I shall train you to get stronger and In return I ask you to open a mental link in order to allow me to from time to time talk to you and to see the world through you eyes. I've been stuck in this darn seal for so long I've forgotten what it feels like to be free. Your friends are probably worried about you. When your ready to talk about my proposal sit down, close your eyes, and concentrate on this place. I will be here when until you decide."**

"Well that's all great and all put you still haven't told me how to get out of here."

 **"Oh that's simple, just wake up." The nine-tails told him chuckling.**

"You mean I could've left, at any time! Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

 **"Would you have listened to me if I had? Now go!"** Kakashi was reading a book when Naruto woke up and stared at the ceiling,

"Good to see your awake," Kakashi said "You had me worried there for a second kid."

"Kakashi-sensei..."


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys I'm back so I know some of you will be disappointed with the next chapter because it's pretty boring but they can't all be fun right. The next chapter I post will have some more interesting things in it. So without further add chapter 2.

"Good to see your awake," Kakashi said "You had me worried there for a second kid."

"Kakashi-sensei, what happened." The last thing I remember was you killing the mist anbu. Is Sasuke okay?"

Kakashi paused for a moment before responding, "Sasuke will be fine, turns out that the hunter ninja did the same thing he did to Zabuza. Naruto do you remember anything about that fight?"

"No I don't why do you ask Kakashi-sensei?"

"Naruto, you're the one who beat Haku. I think I know how you did it, but I hope I'm wrong about it. Naruto I need you to be quiet about Naruto, Sasuke's not taking his defeat well and I need to talk to Lord Third before we discuss how you won your fight. Naruto just sat there listening "Naruto I don't know how it happened but I need you to look in the mirror before you go downstairs, okay." Naruto got out of bed and walked to a mirror on the wall and nearly had a heart attack,

"Sensei what did you do to my hair!" As Naruto looked in the mirror he saw that part of his hair had changed color, on the left side was a strip of white hair starting at his temple and going to the back of his head.

"I didn't do anything Naruto it was like that when I picked you up."

"But why did it change colors all of sudden." _'Is it the Nine-tails, I know that Naruto was using its chakra during the fight but I've never heard of someone's hairs changing color due to the presence of a tailed beast before. If it wasn't the Nine-tails it had to be Haku's Ice style...but if that was the case why didn't Sasuke's hair change too? Something else is going on I need to talk to Lord Third not just about the Nine-tails escaping but also about this change in Naruto.'_ "Kakashi-sensei, Kakashi's-sensei, HEY KAKASHI-SENSEI!"

"You say something Naruto?" (Somewhere a green clad man sneezed and had the sudden urge to shout something about Kakashi's hip ways)

"Yah, I've been calling your name for the last five minutes. What were you thinking about anyway?"

Kakashi looked at him and sighed "Naruto...I can't tell you," Naruto's face fell and Kakashi decided it was better to tell him somethings "I can't tell you everything that you want to know but I can tell you this much, I was trying to figure out why your hair changed color, but I couldn't come up with a reason so I'm going to talk about that and another thing with the Hokage. Now why don't you go get dressed and go on downstairs." Naruto got up and was about to go into the bathroom when he suddenly stopped,

"Sensei, what happened to my jumpsuit?"

"I'm sorry Naruto but when I found you your clothes were already beyond repair. I went into town and got you a shirt and pants. They should be on the counter so use those for now and when we get back you'll have to get some new clothing."

Naruto just sighed "It was my last set too." Kakashi didn't want to hurt the boys feeling but he was glad that jumpsuit was gone. Naruto left and got dressed and was walking down the stairs when he was suddenly tackled by Inari.

"Thank you for defeating Gato for us," Inari managed to say in between sobs.

"Don't worry about it kid," Sasuke had just walked into the room and when he saw that Naruto was up he simply scowled and clenched his fist.

"Hey dobe, how did you beat Haku?" When Naruto didn't reply he started to get angry, "Hey I asked you a question loser!"

"I don't know Sasuke! I just did now would you stop bothering me about it?" Kakashi chose that exact moment to show up and said,

"Team 7, we're leaving get your gear and let's go!" All three went to the room and grabbed their respective belongings and followed Kakashi out of the house. As they made their way to the bridge Kakashi stopped

"Will you look at that, guess who they named the bridge after." All three of them went over and looked at the plaque it read the Great Naruto Bridge and underneath it said for bravery of Team 7 Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura led by Kakashi. Those who brought peace and hope back the the wave shall always be welcome here.

"Look at that sensei they named a bridge after me."

"That they did Naruto, that they did."

"Why does that loser get a bridge named after him," Sasuke muttered to himself "I'm an elite, I'm the last Uchiha I deserve my name on that bridge." He thought no one had heard him but behind him his sensei was listening to every word _'hm, we still have a lot to work on with that superiority complex of his and I fear it will only get worse Naruto has only been the dead last because he had no one to teach him but I feel that's about to change. With his massive chakra and his eagerness to learn Naruto will become a force to be reckoned with in the coming years.'_ They had been running at a ninja pace throughout the day taking period breaks for lunch and for Sakura to recover man the girls stamina really needed work but because she was too interested in flirting with and stalking Sasuke she never really put much effort into training. Naruto on the other hand had never felt better, he had never been particularly fast he had always relied on his endurance and stamina to beat opponents but even though they were moving pretty fast he felt like he could go faster at one point Kakashi had to stop him because Sakura was about to pass out with the speed he was going at. Kakashi stopped them just as it was about to get dark and started to give commands

"Sasuke get wood for a fire, Sakura there was a stream not to far back from here go get some water, Naruto I want you to set up tents and sleeping bags while I set some traps up." Sasuke came back shortly with the wood and lit it with a small fire justu when the three were done they sat around the fire Sasuke had built and waited for Kakashi to come back. They were quiet for a few minutes and then Naruto began to dig through his bag until he came across a instant ramen cup he pulled out his pot put some water in it and began to wait until it boiled. Sakura looked with disgust at the cup

"Don't you eat anything other than ramen?" She asked

"No I guess I don't." He smiled at her and she just looked at him funny

"Oh yah I've been meaning to ask you this for I little but you were asleep so what happened to your hair?" Naruto sighed he knew he was going to get a lot of questions about it when he got back,

"I don't know, it's been like this ever since my battle with Haku." At this point Sasuke decided to speak up

"Oh yah you never did answer my question how did you beat him?" Naruto sat there for a little while before responding

"I don't know after you 'died' I lost it and before I knew it I had broken his mask."

"Stop acting cool Naruto you really don't expect us to believe that do you? How could you beat someone that Sasuke-kun couldn't?" Kakashi chose that exact moment to walk into the camp he had heard parts of the conversation it was obvious that he had a lot to work on with Sakura she was a totally devoted fan girl and nothing else, her blind devotion could get her killed someday.

"You may not believe it but it's true Sakura." Naruto at this point had begun to eat his ramen "Ok you guys eat what you want I'll take first watch with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura you'll take second watch. Come on Naruto." Both Naruto and Kakashi left and Sakura couldn't believe her luck _'several hours alone with her Sasuke after that he would be able resist her charms she thought to herself.'_

They had been sitting there for several hours when Kakashi spoke up "Naruto I wasn't planning on telling you this, but for your own safety I think you you should know somethings I'll be braking the Thirds law but I think you deserve to know especially given the circumstances."

"If your talking about the Nine-Tails being sealed inside of me, then I already know Mizuki told me when I stole the forbidden scroll. I knew that power I used to beat Haku wasn't my own it was his wasn't it?"

"Yes Naruto it was."

"Then was he was the one who changed my hair color?"

"I don't think so I knew the previous jinjuriki fairly well and she never expressed any abnormal traits so I think it's safe to assume that he didn't do that as to what did I don't know. Come on let's go back its time to wake the others up for their watch.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

So as promised I will try to make this chapter a bit more interesting, but before I continue with the story I read a review about the story and I thought that I would clear up some issues with my story. This reviewer didn't like my story because he thought that I was going to completely change Naruto and make him Hagaromo and so I thought I'd explain my plans for the story because someone else may have the same idea. If you've read or watched the anime or manga you already know that Naruto is Ashura's incarnation but is still the lovable goofball we have all come to know and love. My plan is to make Naruto inherit the sages power with his will and ideals about peace but not turn him into Hagaromo. Now that I've got that out there shall we continue the story?

Team Seven stood before the Hokage sweating like hell. The man may be old but he still hadn't lost his presence, the KI that was leaking off the man would make just about anyone turn around and run with soiled pants.

"Let me get this straight," the elderly Hokage said "you knowingly sent three untrained genin into an A ranked mission with no backup and no training. Sasuke and Sakura you leave Naruto and Kakashi we need to talk about Naruto's sudden power and change and about your teaching habits Kakashi." Sasuke and Sakura left but not before Sasuke threw some dirty looks Naruto's way. "Now then I read the report but I would like to know what you have to say about your fight with Haku Naruto."

"Yes, well I had just finished with two bandits that were attempting to kidnap Inari and his mother and when I had arrived Sasuke was in the dome with the Hunter Ninja. I entered the dome and we both tried to break free with no avail. After a while I began to suffer chakra exhaustion from my excessive use of the shadow clone jutsu. He dove in front of the needles to save me and seeing him laying there...I had never felt so angry before, I blacked out and the last thing I remember is Kakashi killing Haku."

The old man just sat there and listened, he took an long puff on his pipe before talking, "Naruto I'm sure that you already know this but the power you used was not your own. Your rage and anger allowed you to subconsciously draw upon the power of the Nine-Tailed fox. You need to be very careful Naruto, I would like you to start to use the Nine-Tails power but you need to be careful it can have a devastating affects on your mind. I will call someone back to the village in for to help you with this. In the meantime I want you to start controlling your emotions better, Kakashi will give you some training in battle but it will require you to spend a lot of time in meditation on your own. I think it's time to open my sensei's former training ground. Your dismissed Naruto you'll have the week off so get some rest, Kakashi you stay."

Naruto gave a pitying look at his sensei and before he closed the door he could've sworn he felt the ice coming off the old man. Wandering through town he found himself at the edge of town facing a massive forest. Naruto sighed this was his favorite place to come when he was little, he had rigged the entire forest with traps and knew every twist and turn, every tree and bush. He had been chased here on many occasions by the villagers of their demon hunts. He remembered what the Hokage had said to him about meditation and something didn't feel right to him. When he was still in the academy and the class had had a discussion about the Nine-Tails attack. He remember reading in class that it was nothing but a beast with no conscious and all it knew was hate and destruction, but if that was the case then why had he been able to talk to him? Something in the books he read was wrong looking up he frowned at where he was, looking at a tree he saw deep gashes and some blood that the rain still hadn't washed away, this was the place where he had made genin. Looking ahead he saw a cottage and he decided to go in. Looking around he saw that the walls were broken and nonexistent in some places with grass and trees growing in. The ceiling was cracked and holes opened creating beams of sunlight. Going to the back of the house he saw that it was in better shape sitting down he remembered the foxes offer about training. He wasn't sure if he was being true or not but he still wanted answers, he wanted the true about what happened the night his parents died and he was made a jinjuriki. He sat down in the lotus position in the center of the room and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he found himself back in the sewer. Following the pipe filled with red chakra he found him self facing the red bars with an all to familiar fox inside.

 **"I didn't think you'd be back so soon," I knew you were always the impatient type but even for you this is reckless, to approach the mighty king of demons without any preparation at all...your either very brave or incredibly stupid. Based on how you've lived your life so far I'd but my money on incredibly stupid."** Naruto said nothing and only stared at the fox after what seemed like an eternity he finally spoke

"I haven't come to a decision about your proposal, however it may be affected by your answers to so,me of my questions. I don't know if you remember but in the academy we had a discussion about when you attacked our village 14 years ago."

 **"Hm...must've been asleep that day."**

"Very well then, in the academy we covered what happened that night but seeing as they told me that the fourth Hokage killed you and your still here so I was wondered what else they lied to me about and the only way for me to know is to ask you, so will you tell me?"

 **"If I tell you I must warn you that I will ask for something in return,"** without waiting for a reply he started in on his tail (hah, get it?). **"You might want to get comfortable boy my story will take some time. It was October tenth, your mother had been escorted out of the village and to a secure location to give birth. Like you your mother shared the same condition as you did and what many don't know is that when a female jinjuriki is about to give birth their seal is weakened considerably. I don't know how but a masked man slipped through the defenses and lured your father away from your mother and me but threatening to kill you. Your father managed to save you but the masked man had already extracted me from your mother and was using me to attack the village. The fourth in the end managed to subdue me with the help of your mother's unique chakra. He sacrificed himself to seal me in you. Now if you were paying attention you would know that I dropped several hints as to the identity of your father."**

"What no you didn't? I didn't hear you mention any names or any titles."

 **"You really need to pay attention more if you were you would notice that I mentioned that the fourth subdued me with the help of your mother. Now if she knew that he was going to seal me into her only child don't you think she would've stopped him? Of course unless he was your father."**

"Ah, you stupid fox you don't make any sense at all, just come out and tell me already."

 **"Insolent little brat, don't presume to try and command me...your father was none other than Minato Namikaze the Fourth Hokage. Now I think it's only fair that you give me something in return."** Naruto just stood there for several second until his brain finally seemed to finish processing what his ears had told him,

"WHAT! The Forth Hokage was my father, why...why would he ever seal you inside of his own son!"

 **"I don't presume to know the Forth's reasoning, but I can tell you this much that if he was to seal me into any other child I would simply break free. You much like your mother have a very potent chakra and life force that keeps me at bay. Unlike my other siblings my power is not so easy to seal. Now if your done gawking at me I would like you to fulfill your promise and give me what I ask for this story."**

"Let me guess you want me to give you access to my thoughts and feelings, or better yet release the seal?"

 **"A tempting offer but as a gesture of goodwill I will I ask for something different. As you can see I barely fit inside of this cage so all I ask for you to give me is a change in scenery, I don't know why your mind chose a sewer for a setting but seeing as this is your mind I would simply ask you to change it."**

"Well assuming I don't know how to do that, what would I have to do?"

 **"Envision any landscape slowly replacing this one in your mind. Close your eyes and pick a landscape. When you have one concentrate on every detail no matter how small or insignificant. When you open them you'll know you've succeeded if the sewer has effectively been replaced."** Naruto closed his eyes and concentrated in his mind he saw a deep luscious forest surrounded by mountains, he began to move around the forest and created lakes and streams a water fall and caves. Lastly we filled in with life. He saw birds in the sky and rabbits hoping on the ground. He envisioned snakes and insects before he knew it the forest was teeming with life. The fox to say the least was shocked **'I've never felt such power before if he can accomplish this much without the sage's power I wonder what he'll be able to do when he unlocks the rinnegan.'** Naruto opened his eyes and found that the sewer had changed to a forest. On each of the mountains was a seal and in the center of the forest was a hexagonal stone platform with a metal snail like shell.

"As nice as it was talking to you Nine-Tails I need to get going now."

 **"Wait before you go, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to gain your trust. As much as I hate to admit I've grown fond of you kit and would like to see you grow up. I want to help you realize your true potential."**

"Well I suppose you could start by telling me your name, it's hard to imagine the kind of demons not having a name."

 **"You will have been the second person to hear my name child. Names hold great power in this world and so as a gesture of good faith I will tell you my name...you may call me Kurama."**

"I am honored to call you by your name, Kurama I may not understand everything about you but I can tell that you truly are trying to help me and so before I take you up on your offer I would like to know more about my parents."

 **"Very well, I can't tell you much about them because I never interacted with them that much but I can tell you this much. The villagers lied to you when they said they abandoned you, even a hate driven demon can see that much. Your parents may not be here for you now but their will lives on inside of you, they loved you so much that they gave their lives for you to live. Naruto, you may hate them for sealing me inside of you but they died so that you would live."** Naruto simply stood there and finally 14 years of suffering and pain caught up with him he simply broke down crying. He ran toward the only thing there and it just so happened to be the fox as he ran towards him the bars appeared around the fox but Naruto ran past them and jumped onto the foxes paw and cried his heart out. Kurama didn't know what to do, he had lived thousands of years and yet never before had a human child cried on him before. After several minutes Naruto realized where he was a nearly fainted.

"You didn't kill me, but why?"

 **"I have to interest in doing that, I made a promise to a wise old man to help you on your path and I'm going to do just that."**

"Kurama, you have proven to me that your worthy of my trust. I would gladly give you access to my thoughts and feelings in return for your training. I need to be strong in order to protect all of those people that are dear to me. Will you help me to achieve my goal and help me along my path?"

 **"Yes, Naruto I will help you to achieve you goals. Here bump fists with me."** He put out his paw in the shape of the fist and Naruto met it with his own.

"I understand now," Naruto walked over to the seal and touched it. It glowed briefly and turned around to Kurama. "It's done you have access to my thoughts and feeling, you can now live again through me."

 **"You've impressed me kit, we will start your training tomorrow but for now I think it's time you go home. Oh, you might want to pick up some new clothes while your at it. NO ORANGE."**

As Naruto opened his eyes and stood up the first thing he noticed was that the sun had nearly set if he was going to some new clothes before he went home he would have to hurry, stores would be closing soon. He raced back to town and tried to enter a ninja shop only to be kicked out. He was about to walk away when Kurama said, **"Try a henge jutsu kid"** Naruto looked across the street and saw a boy his age with black hair. He quickly changed into the boy but left his headband in place. He walked in and saw counters filled with kunai and shuriken. Turning to the other wall he saw racks of clothing. He went over and found a mesh armor shirt and black pants. He picked up a few weapons to replenish those he had lost on missions, when he saw out of the corner of his eye. It was a black handled katana with a pure red blade. "Hey, Kurama are you going to teach me any kenjutsu?"

 **"I hadn't planned on it, but I don't see why not go ahead and pick up the blade and see how it feels in your hand."** Naruto did precisely that and found it fit his hand perfectly. He went up to the counter and pulled out his wallet. With the blade the cost would pretty much clean out his saving but seeing as he had an A-ranked mission pay coming his way he decided it was okay. He went home and without even eating anything passed out on his couch.

So so guys I hope you liked my newest chapter. I realized that my first two chapters were really short so I tried to make this one longer with out making it to boring. Please guys review, tell me what you liked and what you didn't all reviews are read and appreciated. If you have a question just be patient I'll try and answer it as soon as I can.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When Naruto woke up he felt like he had been hit by a train. When he collapsed on his coach last night, he had no idea it would hurt so bad getting back up. He locked around his broken down apartment with its dirty floors and cracked wall. He would have to find another place to live soon, his apartment was falling down around him. He sighed and walked to the kitchen and started to pick out a instant ramen cup when he heard a soon to be familiar voice,

 **"Listen up child, the food you eat is the first thing we're going to change around here. You can't be expected to grow healthy if all you eat is sodium broth and noddles. Eat an apple once and a while kit. Get dressed and go to the cottage in the woods where you were yesterday to start our training."** Naruto got dressed, he picked up his pouches and strapped his sword to his back. He raced out the door knocking several people over with his enthusiasm. He approached the edge of the forest and slowed down. He began to make his was over to the cottage and found it exactly the way he left it yesterday.

"Man if I'm going to be training here I'm going to need to fix it up first." Naruto then spent the first couple of hours moving rocks out of the way and cleared some of the grass when Kurama spoke.

 **"Don't worry so much about that right now, it will go much faster once you learn a few jutsus. You might want to ask the old man if he could assign a couple of genin to fixing up this place. To start you training come meet me in your mind we have a few things to discuss."** Naruto sat down in the same room as yesterday and began to meditate, it was only a few minutes before a beautiful forest came into few and standing in the middle was Kurama. Naruto stood back for a minute, he never realized how large he truly was. Kurama dwarfed some of the smaller mountains he understood now why the villagers feared him he truly was a magnificent sight. Naruto walked up to him and spoke,

"So Kurama-sensei, what are we going to learn today?"

 **"First Naruto let me explain a few things. As you know we are in your mind and you have control of what happens here. The most notable example would be how you changed the landscape in here. I'll admit I've only once before seen the power you displayed yesterday and if I'm right about you your power will continue to grow. Seeing as we're in your mind were limited to what we can do here, for example I can teach you things but you won't be able to improve your physical strength in here. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can only train your mind in here, normally this would put you at a huge disadvantage seeing as we only have a week before you start going on mission. If I am going to be successful in training you we will need to slow down time."**

"What!? How do you expect me to do that?"

 **"Relax kit I didn't mean that literally. What I'm getting at here is we need to train your mind and body equally but we don't have enough time. So what your going to do is slow down time here in your mind so we can work on your intelligence and still have time to train your body in the real world."**

"That's all great and all but I still really don't understand how I changed everything in here I just acted on pure instinct. I'm just a kid, what your talking about is impossible!"

 **"No it's not child, I once knew a man who created the moon. All I'm asking is for you to make a hourglass. Once it's been made I'll do the rest. Focus close your eyes and concentrate, envision the hourglass forming next to you."** Naruto closed his eyes and sat down he focused ignoring everything around him he slowly began to glow white, and the patch in his hair grew. Slowly a hourglass formed and when he opened his eyes nest to him was a gold hourglass filled with black sand.

"Okay so now what?" The fox didn't saw anything but picked up the hourglass a put it in the palm of his hand. All of a sudden the sand stopped swirling and then it seemed to move in slow motion.

 **"There it's done, what seems like an hour in your mind will be a minute in the real world now follow me."** Kurama disappeared in a poof of smoke and reappeared as a smaller version of himself. He was now the size of a large dog. (Think akamaru in shippuden) Kurama began walking toward the seal and motioned for Naruto to follow him. When they arrived at the hexagonal platform he put his hand on the floor of the platform and then stairs began to form leading down and up. **"This is the center of your soul child if you go down those steps you'll come across a giant library with both your knowledge and mine stored in scroll after scroll."** As they walked down the steps and found the bottom Naruto was speechless at the size of the library. **"Scrolls that are red are mine knowledge and scrolls that are blue are yours. Come along we don't have a second to lose the first thing were going to do is try and find a taijutsu style that fits you, quite frankly the academy style they taught you doesn't really do much and on top of that you can't throw a proper punch."** Naruto didn't say anything but only stood there while the fox found what he was looking for. He pulled down a very large scroll an began to look through it until he found a diagram with pictures on it. "This style is often taught to ninja in the leaf village, it's called the fire fist style. I'm not entirely sure if it will fit you but it's a good start and you can build upon this style to create your own unique style much like your father did." Naruto looked at the diagrams and committed them to memory. Finally he decided to ask something that had been bugging him for a little while,

"Hey Kurama I was wondering, what do the other stairs lead too?" Kurama thought for a moment before answering,

 **"I can't answer that yet, but I can tell you this. Do not, DO NOT, go up their yet. The stairs lead to knowledge and power your not ready for yet. If you try to go up their before your ready you'll be incinerated. Now we've already wasted enough time, out behind the cottage should be some wooden posts, use those to practice what you've learned. I'll be here and will give you advice and coach you through it."** Naruto left and began to practice with Kurama occasionally interrupting with some advice but mostly he let the boy figure it out on his own. Before he knew it lunch time had arrived and he was about to leave when Kurama stopped him, **"where do you think your going?"**

"I'm going to get some ramen I'm hungry."

 **"Oh no your not, your training isn't just going to be learning how to fight it's going to be how to survive. You have everything right here in this forest, your going to have to catch your lunch. If can't then your going hungry. Maybe if you get it done within the next hour I'll let you go to Ichiraku's for dinner." 'Well that sure got the boy motivated he thought as he took off to go and catch some lunch.'** Naruto began to search for any sign of food when he saw some rabbit tracks, following them he set up a net a little way away and chased the rabbits into the waiting net. He picked them up and then began to search for some wood to make a fire. He quickly skinned the rabbits and roasted them over the fire. When they had cooked he began to eat them. He finished eating and stood up he walked over to the posts and trained until he was about to collapse looking at the sun he saw that it was about to set and He raced to Ichiraku's and wolfed down as much ramen as he could stomach. He waddled away with his wallet considerably lighter. He went home to his apartment and nearly screamed when he saw his hair. It had changed again the strip of white in his hair had gotten larger and overall his hair seemed lighter. His hair had always been a bit of a dirty blonde but now it looked much lighter. 'I'll have to add that to the list of things to ask the fox about.' Naruto went to bed and soon fell asleep."

He woke up the next morning and everything was sore he went to his shower and just let the hot water run on his muscles. He went to the cottage and trained all day, this time he worked on properly throwing kunai and shuriken. At first he was disappointed, he wanted to learn how to use his sword but he understood the fox's reasoning behind his training. He had to first relearn everything in the academy properly before he could start learning new things. So he threw himself into his training and before long results began to appear and slowly but surely he began to get rid of his bad habits. Soon after he could hit several targets in a row Kurama gave him a scroll on sword styles and Naruto began to practice with his sword. He wasn't very good at the moment but he would soon rectify that. On the last day before he was to return to active duty he went out on the fox's instructions and purchased several resistance seals. They weren't cheap but he soon found out that they increase his speed and strength tenfold when he removed them. He took the last day off and just relaxed. He visited his friend Shikamaru and lost a game of shogi, he was getting better at tactics but he would never be able to outsmart the Nara clans heir. He fell asleep that night eager to find out what type of mission he would get tomorrow.


	5. Chapter 5

So I got a guest review after the last chapter and I couldn't figure out how to reply to it so I thought I do it here. Sorry for the wait Jasmine but to answer your question I plan on having Naruto learn more about both his powers and the prophesy in either this chapter or the next so stay tuned. I won't reveal everything because I still need the Ancient Toad to explain some things. I hope this addressed your concern about my story and I hope you continue to read.

Chapter 5

Team 7 stood before the Hokage and were eagerly awaiting their next mission. Sasuke tried to put out an attitude of cool collected superiority but anyone could tell he was excited. Sakura looked a little nervous, but then again she nearly died on the last mission. While Naruto just stared at the picture of the Fourth Hokage on the wall, he remembered the conversation he had with the old man yesterday.

Flashback

 _Naruto had just walked in to the Hokage's office and found the old man sitting behind his desk sipping on a cup of tea behind his desk. Seeing him come in he spoke,_

 _"Ah, Naruto how are? Please sit and have a cup of tea with me. Nothing soothes the soul more than a freshly brewed cup of tea." Naruto sat and gladly accepted a cup of tea before taking a moment to gather his thoughts he sat up and looked the man straight in the face."_

 _"I think it's time you told me why you've been lying about my heritage old man." Naruto said._

 _"I told you already Naruto, all I know about them is that they died during the Nine-Tails attack fourteen years ago."_

 _"You've already lied to me about the Nine-Tails attack and him being sealed into me. I would like to know why you didn't tell me that the Fourth Hokage was my father?"_

 _"How did you find out! That's top secret information, only a select few people in the village knew he was married let alone had a child."_

 _"Kurama, told me."_

 _"And just who is this Kurama fellow that so easily gives out privileged information?"_

 _"The Nine-Tail's real name told me that when he told me what happened when he attached the village, you really should blame him seeing as he was being controlled with the Sharingan."_

 _"Oh that's just great Naruto, I know I said that I wanted you to start using his power but not like this. What has he told you, Naruto you can't trust him even if the attack wasn't his idea he still slaughtered hundreds of villagers that night."_

 _"When will you learn to let go old man? You want me to just take the his chakra and say nothing to him, is that right? Do you have any idea how wrong that is? There not just chakra, they're living conscious beings. I trust him and even thought I know you don't I'm asking you to trust me." The old man sat there for what seems like ages and finally he spoke,_

 _"I may not like the beast, your right Naruto but I will place my trust in you and so if you truly believe this is the best thing to do I will support you. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you before this. I was afraid of what might happen if Iwa found out that the Yondaime had a son. They never truly got over their defeat at his hands and they may have tried to take their anger out on you. I know realize that this was a mistake, I'm sorry Naruto if I could change it I would hopefully this will help, I have a gift for you from your father." He reached into his desk and pulled out a scroll. Study up, I was supposed to give you this when you either became a jonin or learned of your heritage." Naruto took the scroll and written on the side was Introduction to Sealing he smiled._

 _"Thanks old man, but before I go I have something to ask you."_

 _"Sure Naruto what would you like to know?"_

 _"Well my old apartment is slowly but surely falling apart so I would like to move." I found an old broken down cottage in the woods were Iruka and I stopped Mizuki. I was hoping you could assign a few D-ranked missions to some genin to fix it up."_

 _"Of course Naruto, with any luck it will be ready for you to move into when you come back from your mission."_

 _"Thanks old man, now I've got to go and beat Shikamaru at shogi."_

 _"Good luck with that, if he is anywhere near as good as his father you'll never beat him."_

 _"Oh and please don't try and beat yourself up about the past. I've already forgiven them and I've forgiven you. Try and look to the future and worry not about the past."_

Flashback End

"Team 7. The Hokage said, your being assigned a B-rank mission. We have sent a convoy to a gold mine in the land of rivers to collect payment for an earlier mission. Rumor has it that a missing-nin from The Village hidden in the Clouds has taken over the mine. You mission will be to find out why our convoy hasn't returned and off necessary eliminate the missing-nin and whatever forces he might have." He walked over to Kakashi and gave him the file on the missing-nin and convoy members. He whispered something in Kakashi's ear and he nodded, he looked at the file and then turned to his team.

"Team 7 meet at the main gate in one hour. DISMISSED!" They all left the room leaving Kakashi to talk with the he Hokage. Naruto walked to his apartment and began to pack some things for the trip. He put 30 kunai and 20 shuriken in his pouch and put one demon windmill shuriken in his backpack. He then changed into his mission clothes that he had bought with one simple change over his mesh armor he had a simple grey anbu chest plate on. He strapped his sword to his back and tied his head band on. He put a few random items in his backpack including a water bottle and medical pouch. He walked to the main gate ten minutes before he was supposed to arrive only to find both Sasuke and Sakura already there. He walked over and for once got a complement out of Sasuke,

"The new outfit suits you. Of course it doesn't match mine but for a loser...not bad, not bad at all."

"Humph, you always seem to have a way to insult people even when your trying to compliment them Sasuke."

"Whatever loser, so what's with the sword?"

"Oh well I've been training to get stronger but seeing as my chakra control still isn't up to par I needed something to defend myself so I started to train with this sword I bought."

"Humph..." It looked like he was about to respond when Kakashi jumped down in front of them surprising all of them.

"Your actually on time today sensei." Sakura said

"Well I can't be late all the time now can I." Kakashi said, "now if we're going to make our rendezvous we need to get going. Well travel in line formation I'm in the front Naruto your in back, Sasuke and Sakura you'll be in the middle. Let's move out!" They all jumped into the trees and raced like blurs towards the land of rivers. After several hours they stopped in a small clearing. "All right guys," Kakashi said, "take a few moments to rest up we leave in 30." They all dropped their packs and sat down under the trees. Sasuke pulled out what looked like soup and Sakura ate a salad. Naruto popped a soldier pill in his mouth got up and walked to a different clearing to practice his sword forms. He pulled out his red blade and watched as it glittered in the sunlight. Unknown to him Kakashi stood up in a tree watching his every move. _'He moves just like his mother did. The way he turns its almost like looking a mirror of her moves. How did he get so good? More importantly where did he get that sword, it was of good quality and wouldn't be cheap. I'll have to ask him about it later but for now I'll just watch. Now I understand why the Hokage had me watch him, if he learned this much in one week...I shudder to think about what he'll be capable of when Jiraiya trains him. I might need to up my training if I want to stay ahead of the curve. Sasuke has already awakened his Sharingan, they grow up so fast.'_ He stopped thinking to himself and walked back to the campsite and found that his team was already ready to go. "Alright guys we've made some pretty good time today so well travel 2 or 3 more hours and then we'll stop for the day. If there is still time after we set up camp we'll see about some training. They took off at even greater speeds this time with Naruto and Sasuke competing for first eager to start there training. At one point Sasuke dropped behind Naruto and he cheered having claimed first place. The rest of the traveling went smoothly and before they knew it they had arrived, before they had even hit the ground Kakashi was already barking out orders "alright duty assignments, Sasuke I want you to find a source of water and bring us back some Sakura I want you to stay here collect some wood for a fire and set up camp. Naruto you'll be in charge of finding us some dinner while I scout and set up some traps. If you encounter any trouble just flare your chakra and we'll all come to you. Everyone understand what their doing?"

"Yes Kakashi-sensei" they all replied.

"Good be back here in say...and hour. Leave your tent and gear with Sakura and then we'll start training when we get back." They all took off in different directions in search of food, water, and enemies.

Naruto quickly found and couple of ducks and quickly dispatched them with a couple of kunai. He retrieved his kill and weapons and went in search of more food. He saw a birds nest with a couple of eggs in it he took them and started walking toward and bush and picked up a couple of handfuls of berries and left to go back to the campsite. When he had arrived everyone was already there and was waiting around a fire. He sat down next to Sakura and spoke, "well it may have taken me a little while but I think I found enough for all of us to eat." Sakura was the first to complain,

"What is that? It doesn't fit in my diet at all!" Kakashi just sighed at his students

"I was hoping it wasn't going to come to this but it looks like there's no way around this lecture. First thing is that you may not like what Naruto has brought you but he put effort into finding it and that deserves your respect. Second of all you don't need to diet." He put up his hand to silence the incoming complaint "the reason why is the shinobi burn through so many calories a day we can afford to eat whatever we want and still be healthy. You need to eat fatter foods if you want to keep up with these two." Kakashi then picked up a bird and showed the others how to pluck the bird and prepare it to be edible. After 2 hours the smell of roasted duck and eggs filled the air. They quickly dismantled the ducks striping every piece of flesh they could get. Kakashi even managed to eat with removing his mask, that mystified the three genin to no end. Kakashi stood up and spoke "okay guys we made really good time and seeing as we have a few hours before we turn in follow me." He left their campsite and walked toward the river where Sasuke had earlier collected water. "Okay guys this is a more advanced version of the tree climbing exercise. With that exercise you trained with putting the correct amount of chakra to your feet, this allowed you to walk up the tree but with the water walking exercise you need to change that amount continuously to stay above the water." After he said that he stepped onto the water and walked to the other side. "Until you can walk across the water and back again we won't move onto more advanced training." Naruto quickly took off his sandals eager to begin he rolled up part of his pants only to find Sasuke already out there in the water.

"Well if he can then so can I." Little did he know that by him stepping on the water caused Sasuke to lose concentration and fall into the water. They each got up and Naruto found that he could barely make it a few steps before he fell in. Sakura did much better than they did but she still had trouble and could make it very far due to her low chakra reserves. He got up and tried again. He got about half way across the river before it was time to stop Sakura almost got there and Sasuke was in between the two of them. Trudging back toward the campsite they all fell asleep without a word while Kakashi took the first watch and Sasuke the second.

Naruto woke up and began to break down his tent he put away his gear. Seeing as his teammates had not gotten up yet he decided to meditate. It was that scene that Sakura and Kakashi woke up too. He was sitting underneath a tree in the lotus position. Not thinking about anything, not moving at all. Little did he know that he was amassing and storing nature energy. He stood up but didn't feel or look any different than he normally did. He saw Sasuke jump down from his lookout post and put his gear away. They left their campsite far behind them and began to look around for any sign of the convoy. According to the Hokage's report they were traveling down this road and into the town next to the gold mine. What they saw shocked them to their core.

They were just about to enter the town when Kakashi motioned for them to stop. "I smell something burning but it's pretty faint." He said blurred through the hand signs Boar, dog, bird, monkey, and landed on Ram. "Summoning jutsu," he slammed his hand on the ground and kanji flowed in a circle from his hand. In a poof a smoke stood a small brown dog with a forehead protector.

"Hey Kakashi what do you need?"

"Hey Pakkun, I smell something burning but I can't make out what direction it's coming from can you tell me where it's coming from?"

"Sure thing follow me." And jumped into the forest next to the town. They were traveling for several minutes but they soon came across what was burning. It was several corpses of civilians but next to them was a sword plunged into the soil with a leaf ninja coat pierced through it. It was too much for Sakura and she threw up. Sasuke simply stood there and Kakashi murmured,

"Oh no. It was the convoy there's no doubt about it. That sword belongs to Akira, he was assigned to protect this convoy on their way to collect payment. It looks like the rumors were true someone has taken over the mine." Naruto wasn't handling it very well he punched a tree and yelled,

"When I get my hands on whoever did this, they're going to pay for what they did to one of our own." His voiced changed at the very end it sounded almost demonic. They spent the rest of the day searching for any clues about who might be behind this. Kakashi made sure to stay by Naruto at all times fearing another bridge incident. They talked to people on the street and it only worsened Naruto's attitude toward the bandits. They had been collecting 'taxes' and if you could pay up they took your wife or daughter. What they managed to get out of the villagers was that they took the women and girls to the entrance of the mine. There they had a huge camp set up. Kakashi and Naruto met Sasuke and Sakura at their hotel room to discuss and share what they had learned.

Kakashi spoke first "well we didn't learn much but we can tell you this, their located at the entrance to the mine and...they kidnapped women and girls." Sakura looked furious but managed to compose herself before speaking,

"We know they've also taken the miners hostage, there are supposed to be something close to 300 of them."

"Great 300 plus hostages all guarded," Naruto said "any ideas Kakashi-sensei?"

"Maybe, if Sasuke and I keep them busy you might be able to free the hostages. We could buy you enough time with a flashy diversion for you to free the hostages and regroup. The only problem with that is we will be forced to battle at that point."

"We can handle it sensei" Sasuke said, "these people have to be stopped."

"Very well, we know that their leader is Waru Kirā. He is a missing-nin from the Cloud village he possesses a kekai genkai called the magnet style. We don't know much about but we do know that he can magnetize anything he or his blades touch. This means dodge don't block. We know he was expelled from the village for stealing a precious artifact that is said to have belonged to the sage of the six paths. Alright guys get some sleep we'll survey the area in the morning and plan of attack." He blew out the lantern in the middle of the room and Sakura left to go to her room. Naruto climbed into one bed and soon fell asleep. He began to dream that he was in a dark mine shaft and at the end there was beautiful necklace in a chest. He was about to open it when he was sudden sliced in half. His dream shifted and soon he was in a dark room tied to a post and he was torturing himself. He was stabbing and cutting himself. He woke up with a start, he went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. He tried to go back to sleep only to find himself screaming in a dark room. He finally gave up and just sat on the balcony in his boxers and waited for morning to come. He saw the sun rise after a few hours and he went downstairs and ordered breakfast to come to his room. He entered to find everyone there, Kakashi still looked sleepy Sakura looked anxious and Sasuke was a calm as ever but he could tell that scene yesterday had freaked him out.

Kakashi watched him enter the room and observed his movements and looked at the bags under his eyes. "You look like crap. What happened, couldn't sleep after what you saw yesterday."

"No, not that...I don't want to talk about it." Naruto said, that got Kakashi's attention. _'Somethings wrong I'll ask him about it later.'_ "I ordered room service to be delivered so I guess we'll eat and then go?"

"Sounds good to me" Kakashi said, "we'll all leave here in say 2 hours." They ate and Naruto took a very long time in the shower trying to forget his nightmare last night. When he emerged he got dressed and went down stairs waiting for the other members of his team to show up. He sat down in the reception area and waited. He didn't have to wait long before everyone was there. Kakashi once again summoned Pakkun and told him to lead them to the bandit camp. They surveyed the area and found it poorly guarded. Kakashi disguised himself with a henge and looked around the camp. The miners were guarded by 3 bandits and the girls were in a tent locked up next to them. He went back to his team and informed them what was going to happen. "Okay so Sasuke and I will set of paper bombs in the front of the camp. If we're lucky that will draw them all towards us leaving the prisoners unguarded allowing you to rescue them, Sakura will lead them back to town while Naruto joins us in dispatching the bandits."

"Sensei" Sakura said, "what about Waru Kirā? If we attack his men won't he come out and attack us."

"No, from what I know about him well have to fight towards him and physically bust down his door for him to engage us. Good so does everyone know the plan? Alrighty then we attack at dusk. Sakura and Sasuke why don't you go train for a little while I need to talk to Naruto. They left and Naruto was left alone with Kakashi. "So what's wrong, why couldn't you sleep last night?"

"I had a nightmare, the first one I was being chased down a hall I was sliced the second I was being tortured by myself. Kurama warned me about this, he warned me about my inner hatred. I was careless and I let it influence my thoughts."

"Naruto I think I understand we all have a dark side. I myself still struggle with it and Sasuke is on the verge of being consumed by it. You have to accept who you are Naruto the good and the bad. There is a Yin to every Yang. Only when we find balance can we find peace. I'm just telling you what the old man told me. I still haven't figured it out but I think you will. Come on Naruto it's time for a little one on one taijutsu spar. Let's see how good you've gotten shall we." He took Naruto to a small clearing "remember taijutsu only but other than that no holds barred."

Naruto rushed forward and threw a punch and his face. Kakashi dodged it easily and swept his feet out. Naruto caught himself and spun around attacking from behind. He leapt forward and swung at his torso. Kakashi spun around blocking it with his forearm. "Not bad, but your speed could use some work though and your way to predictable. Now why don't we put that sword of yours to work.

Naruto grinned "if you insist sensei" and he immediately slashed at his chest. Kakashi stopped in with a kunai and smiled.

"You'll have to better than that if you ever hope to beat me." He said Naruto growled and immediately began to hack away at him not caring if he hurt him or not. It was over very quickly, "not bad" he said from behind Naruto's head he put a kunai to his neck and continued "but you need to work on your speed, even if you did release those resistance seals of your it still wouldn't be enough."

"How did you know about my seals?" Naruto stammered

"Please I knew the man who invented those. Do you really think I would recognize them? Come on we need to get ready for the raid." And they both walked back to their spying spot.

Whew so far this is the longest chapter I've ever written at 3,949 words and I managed to get it done in one day. I need some help guys, I plan on giving Naruto half of the elements and paths in the one go so tell me which ones I should include. That means 3 elements and 3 paths he'll get the others later. Stayed tuned because next chapter there's going to be a fight!

 **Update 4/17/16**

Okay guys tiny bit of a rant here I got a guest review that went as follows, ":I can't read this.. Reason? " oh hey jiji-chan why didn't you tell me about my heritage. oh idk naru it's probably because it's dangerous enough that your parents enemies might come after you. Well too bad it my father was the hokage! What who told you. Kyuubi.." Just then and there I knew the writer had a brain f***.. Just look up that term and soak it all up look for its meaning.. Well I'm done here i can't handle any more of the stupidity that exists here." I couldn't respond to the person directly so I thought I'd do it here, first thing I am a human and a high schooler who is planing, writing, and reviewing this on my own. I won't catch all of my mistakes I freely admit that and you know this person was right. That conversation in this chapter between the the third and Naruto was not fully developed so I went back and changed it. Little piece of advice this is fanfiction its not supposed to be a first rate novel. Would I like it to be one sure and have I read some really good developed mature works on this website sure but this one probably falls far short of the mark they set. If you have something to say to me and think I made a mistake I would love to hear from you, all I ask is that you keep it civil. - End Rant


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 

Naruto and Sakura hid behind a rock near the entrance to the mine and waited for Kakashi's and Sasuke's signal. Sakura was nervous and was shivering, "it's going to be alright" Naruto said, "I know this will be your first real fight but we need you. Don't freak out on us." Sakura took a deep breath and spoke

"Your right" 'there's no way I'm gonna look weak in front of Sasuke' she thought "thanks, I'm okay now." Just as she finished speaking two explosions went off.

"That's the signal, let's go!" They raced toward the entrance of the mine. They entered and found a small tent and what they found inside disgusted them. Women and girls aged anywhere from 13 to 40 were tied up. Some were chained against the wall and some were in cages. When Naruto went to free some of them they shrunk back and shied away. "It's okay, I'm here to help you." He showed them his head band and he took he out of the cage, Sakura look murderous she had clenched her hands so tight that her knuckles had turned white. "Sakura, I know your upset but our first priority is getting these girls out of here. You help them and I'll search for the miners." He left with Sakura wrapping a blanket around a girl and left in search of the miners. He walked out of the tent and was struck with how large the place really was. He made about a dozen shadow clones and instructed them to search for the miners. They all spread out to look for them.

(With Kakashi and Sasuke)

"On my mark" Kakashi said, "Now!" He detonated his paper bomb and Sasuke did the same. The results were immediate. It looked like an overturned anthill in the bandit camp. Kakashi and Sasuke rushed in killing bandits left and right. Sasuke had activated his Sharingan and had killed five bandits. He looked like he was about to throw up when a bandit turned to slash at his back only to be stopped by Kakashi. "It's alright Sasuke, I know how you feel but you have to bury those feeling. Now come on! If we don't stop them here Sakura and Naruto will never free the prisoners now get up and keep fighting." Sasuke didn't say anything for a while but he drew a kunai and muttered

"There's no way I'm gonna die yet. He still has to pay!" He dashed into the crowd of waiting bandits and simply slashed and hacked without abandon. Kakashi followed and they fought back to back covering each other's weaknesses. After a little while they saw Sakura led a group of miners with girls scattered among them. Some were crying and holding on to the men while some were being carried but they didn't see a blond kid among them. "Where's the dobe?" Sasuke asked

"I don't know" Kakashi replied, he was about to enter the cave when he saw Naruto stumble out with a strange necklace around his neck, half of his face was burned and there was a huge gash on his chest. The boy collapsed against the wall. He looked like he was about to pass out but he muttered something and Kakashi just heard,

"He's still alive. Waru Kirā, he tried to go after the prisoners...I bought her just enough time to get away."

 _Flashback_

 _Naruto had just ordered his clones to spread out he was walking down a corridor when he can across a chest with a beautiful necklace. It had six red magatama three on each side. He put it on when his brain was suddenly assaulted with images...no memories of one of his clones. It was traveling down a similar mine shaft to the one he was in when all of a sudden he was confronted by three men. The one in the middle matched Waru Kirā's description perfectly but the two men on his side were complete mysteries. They wore matching black coat with the hood up. But he could tell this much they were tracking ninjas from the cloud. They wore anbu masks each stylized with a lightning bolt. One was black and one was yellow. "Waru Kirā, I guess the information we had was wrong. I though we'd have to come to you but you came right to me. How nice of you." Naruto was trying to act tough but on the inside he was sweating bullets. He may have been a clone but he was still scared shitless._

 _"Oh look" The missing-nin chuckled, "the kid looks like he's about to pee his pants. It's a good act kid, but a mere genin can't intimate me." He started to leak out KI and Naruto dropped to the ground unable to breath. Kirā gestured to the man on his left and said "finish this up, we still need to kill the rest of these pests and get the prisoners back." The black lightning anbu rushed forward and sliced at the clone. It disappeared in a cloud of smoke. 'Huh shadow clone tricky bastard.' "No matter let's go."_

 _Naruto yelled "Sakura!" And raced off to warn her. He arrived at the tent to see one of his clones leading the miners toward the girls. Some began to cry and ran toward their family members. "Move Sakura!" He ran forward and caught a blade to the chest while shoving Sakura over._

 _"What was that for..." Then she saw his chest. "Your hurt."_

 _"Just go, I'll buy you some time, but it won't be much. Don't stop for anything go straight to the town" she looked like she was about to protest but he shouted "GET MOVING, I'll be fine now GO!" She took off with the miners following,_

 _"Brave of you boy. But I think you were lying when you said you'd be fine don't you?" He stopped when he saw that Naruto had made a half tiger sign._

 _"Resistance seals release" a small glow showed around his body and his clothes fluttered a little bit. 'This won't stop them, but at least I won't be totally outclassed now.' He turned and flew toward the yellow lightning anbu and quickly engaged him. He was fighting almost even with him but that ended quickly when the black lighting anbu joined in. He would block one punch only to get hit by the other. He quickly realized that something was off though. Even without his resistance seals he was only about as strong as a low chunin. But these guys weren't moving near as fast as an anbu should. 'What's going on they should've killed me already. Are they just playing with me?' He dodged another punch only to get hit in the stomach. He dropped to ground and coughed up some blood. 'Damn they hit my cut. If I don't think of something quick I'm gonna die.' He didn't even see it coming but Kirā decided to join the fight. He delivered a quick kick upwards and he flew into the ceiling. He fell back down but was grabbed in the throat._

 _"It's been fun kid, but I have better things to do then play with you all day." Two fingers on his right hand sparked and a flame emerged. He put it next to his face. "Naruto just screamed. His face was on fire. His vision went dark in one eye and he lost it._

 _"KURAMA." And golden flames erupted around his body. He gripped his wrist and broke it freeing him from the mans grasp. He race towards the black lightning anbu and punched him so hard he heard his ribs crack. Naruto looked down at the man and saw blood running out of his chest. He ran away and collapsed on a wall at the entrance to the mine a collapsed._

 _Flashback End_

"Kid put up a good fight," Kirā chuckled "I didn't expect him to last as long as he did but I underestimated him." Kakashi was shaking he couldn't believe this had happened it wasn't supposed to go like this,

"You'll pay for this!" Kakashi growled his Sharingan spinning. He didn't wait for a reply he dashed towards Kirā instructing Sasuke to go after the other one. Kakashi blurred through the hand signs faster than most eyes could track. "Fire style: Great Fire Ball" he exhaled and a massive fire ball traveled across the mine and Kirā dodged.

"Hah your going to have to better than that!"

"Earth style: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique" Kakashi shouted as he emerged from the ground.

"Hah, you think this will stop me. Lightning style: Electrical Discharge" and electronic sparks formed blasting away the dirt. Let me show you a jutsu you can't copy. "Magnet style: Kunai attraction" He said and the kunai into the air and they stayed there. "With this I can control any piece of metal around me. You can't touch me if you can't get near me." With that he began to send out the kunai in random directions circling Kakashi. All of a sudden they started to move in on him and he started to dodge his Sharingan predicting the movement perfectly.

"Earth style: Mud wall." He formed a wall to block all the kunai and while they were still embedded in the wall he struck. Making the three hand signs for his signature jutsu the sounds of chirping birds filled the air. "This is for my student," he rushed forward and plunged his hand into Kirā's heart. He turned and saw that Sasuke had already dispatched his opponent.

"He was pretty weak for an anbu" Sasuke said.

"I don't think he was one" Kakashi said covering his Sharingan. "More than likely Kirā either stole the masks or killed the real anbu tracking him. I guess he was trying to pump up his reputation a little. Come on let's go back to town let's hope Naruto can survive this he picked the boy up and carried him back to town.

Naruto woke up to a massive forest surrounded by trees. "Kurama what happened?"

 **"Well your sensei and teammate Sasuke managed to defeat the enemy. You were badly injured in your fight, I barely managed to heal your wounds take a look." Naruto walked over to a lake and saw what he looked like. He had bandages wrapped around his waist and his left eye was wrapped.**

"I'm blind aren't I Kurama." Naruto whispered

 **"No kit you aren't blind, but your eye will never be the same that's for sure. Go ahead and undo the wrappings you'll have to do it again when you leave but go ahead and see your new eye." Naruto unwrapped his eye and gasped. Instead of his normal blue eye there was a new purple eye with several concentric circles surrounding the pupil.**

"Kurama what's up with my eye?" Naruto said

 **"You were extremely luck kit. If you hadn't been unconsciously storing up nature energy you would've gone blind. It seems that while you were healing nature energy merged with your chakra creating a new eye for you. And not just any eye, that's a dojutsu called the rinnegan. You would've awakened it anyway but it seems you've accelerated the process.** ** _'I can't tell him about the sage just yet, it would go straight to his head. He needs to mature more.'_** **"Oh and one more thing before you go." Kurama transformed and walked down the stairs to the library. Back up against the wall was a black door. "I've sealed him up in here. When your ready to face him I'll be here to help but now he won't bother you again."**

"Thanks Kurama I really do appreciate it."

 **"Don't mention it kit. You might want to think about getting up soon your team is probably worried about you."**

When Naruto woke up he was greeted by the familiar smell of disinfectant. Oh just great he was in a hospital.

"Hey kid," Kakashi said, "we really need to stop meeting like this. If you want to hang out all you had to do was ask. No need to injure yourself." Naruto chuckled and then winced,

"Ah, it hurts to laugh."

"Yah I think your going to be bedridden for a little while after all..." He trailed off as he saw Naruto sit up. "Well maybe not, but you always did heal fast." Naruto tried to get out of bed only to fall on the floor. "Take it easy will you, you just woke up." Kakashi picked him up and put him back in bed. "Just rest a little while. You took quite a beating. Fighting three on one was hardly a fair fight. And thank you for saving Sakura."

"It's like you said Kakashi those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. I would gladly give my life to save my teammates." _'Obito you would've liked Naruto, your so much alike. If only you were here to see him.'_ He looked over and saw that he was already asleep. He sighed and pulled out his book. Before long he was giggling perversely.

It was several days before Naruto woke up again. This time both Sakura and Sasuke where next to him with Kakashi sitting in the corner.

"It's good to see you up and moving again" Sasuke said.

"What, no insult Sasuke. I think your slipping either that or you really do care."

"Don't get any ideas loser."

"That's the Sasuke I know. You just can't resist an insult can you?"

"Hm, dobe."

"Hey Naruto," Sakura said "I just wanted to thank you for saving me."

"Don't mention it. I would do the same for any comrade of the Leaf."

"I'm sorry about your eye. Kakashi already told us, I'm sorry your blind now." Sakura said looking like she was about to cry.

"It's alright, I'm not going blind. No if anything they did me a favor. Because of them I awakened my kekai genkai. I haven't awakened it in my other eye yet but it's only a matter of time. What I'm about to show you, you can't tell anyone about." He started to unwrap his left eye to reveal his rinnegan. "I'll ask all of you to keep this a secret in your reports just saw I was blinded." Sakura and Sasuke agreed however Kakashi looked wary.

"I'm sorry Naruto but I swore an oath when I became a jonin. I can't lie to the Hokage like that."

"It's okay Kakashi, you won't have to I planed on telling him when we got back anyway. You won't have to lie because he'll probably keep it a secret. In fact I'll bet the old man will ask us to keep this a secret."

"Huh, fine then. Do you know what that eye of yours does anyways?"

"I don't know much but Kurama said its called the rinnegan. He said that there supposed to be the eyes of God. When a complete set is awakened your supposed to have 6 unique powers. I have only one eye so I guess I only have 3 but I have no idea what they are."

Kakashi sighed "If it's anything like the evolution of the Sharingan your powers will only reveal themselves through life or death situations."

"I guess that makes sense" Sasuke said, "mine awakened in the fight with Haku and even now I only have two tomoe in each eye."

"Hey Naruto" Sakura said "who's Kurama. You said that he told you about you dojutsu. But we haven't seen anyone but us come in here. So who is this guy?" Kakashi looked like he was about to say something when Naruto held up his hand,

"It's okay Kakashi, they deserve to know." Naruto took a deep breath and started in on his tale, "Sakura the academy lied to you when they said that the Fourth Hokage killed the Nine-Tails 14 years ago. No one can kill a tailed beast they are massive beings of chakra given a mind. There are nine in total distributed among the hidden villages to keep peace."

"But if he is still alive and in the leaf village why haven't we seen him?"

"I was just getting to that. As I was saying they were distributed among the hidden villages. During the Second Ninja War the beasts were sealed into human beings with the hopes of Ninja being able to tap into their power. These ninja are called jinjuriki." Naruto took a break and stood out of bed wincing as he did so. Taking a deep breath he continued his story. "The Nine-Tails is unique it can't be sealed in just anyone, the only people who have succeeded in sealing the beast are those from the Uzumaki clan. I am the Nine-Tails jinjuriki. The Fourth Hokage sealed him in me on the same day I was born. October 10th the day the Nine-Tails attacked our village." With that he left the room walking downstairs to get something to eat.

"Well" Kakashi said,

"I have no problem with Naruto on my team." Sasuke said, "I may not like the Nine-Tails but I respect his power." Sakura was on the other hand hesitant

"I'm scared, if what he says is true then what's to stop the Nine-Tails from breaking free."

"For one thing the Fourth Hokage's seal." Kakashi said, "You may not know this but he was one of the villages seal masters. And another is that fact that it's been done before. Many of the general public may not know this and hate Naruto because all they see is the beast but did you know that he is the third jinjuriki of the Nine-Tails? That's right two other people held the beast they were Mito Uzumaki the wife of the First Hokage and Kushina Uzumaki Naruto's mother."

"I guess that if he was a beast then he wouldn't have saved me would he? I may not like the Nine-Tails but I'll trust Naruto." Meanwhile Naruto was having was having a very heated discussion with his tenant

 **"I still don't understand why you had to tell them" Kurama growled Naruto waited until the nurse had given him his food before replying.**

"There my teammates, they deserve to know the truth."

 **"They'll hate you even more now. You have someone with those damned eyes and a girl whose mother calls for your death every other day on you so called team."**

"Enough Kurama, what's done is done. We can't go back and undo it." He went back up to his hospital room. He saw that his teammates had been discussing his condition because when he entered the room all eyes were on him. "Come on Kakashi we've kept the old man waiting long enough. If we're not careful he'll lecture you about punctuality again." He changed out of his hospital gown showing off emerging muscles. He was quite defined for a 14 year old. He put on his mesh armor and pants. He strapped his sword and supply pouches to his waist. "Well what are we waiting for let's go." The others looked like he was crazy,

"You do realize that you've been in the hospital for four days recovering and can barely walk. How do you plan to get back to the village when you hardly move?"

"Well we can hardly sit around here waiting now can we. I guess we will have to move slow the first few days and when I get my strength back we'll move faster. Before I forget Kakashi-sensei what happened to the necklace I was wearing when you found me."

"What are you talking about you weren't wearing anything when you got here" Sasuke said,

"No Sasuke he was wearing something but I don't know what happened to it" Kakashi said.

 **"I have the answer to that kit. That necklace once belonged to the Sage of Six Paths. The Cloud Village always have had an obsession with him they collect his tools and artifacts and that necklace was one of them. It contained his yang chakra or his bodily energy. I guess Kirā stole it when he fled the village. That necklace was absorbed into your body and even now is merging with your chakra network. The results should be shown in about a month, you'll grow taller and new muscles should appear in addition to making your body stronger than ever before."**

"It's fine Sensei Kurama explained what happened to it. According to him it was some sort of chakra necklace that was absorbed into my body and is adapting to my chakra network. Now are we going to stand around all day or are we going to get going?"

"Says the guy who just spent ten minutes talking to himself" Sakura grumbled. She and the rest of Team 7 gathered their gear and left. Kakashi had tried to pay for the hospital visit but they refused. Calling them heroes for saving their loved ones. They moved slow and arrived home in five days at a slow civilian speed. The old man was surprised to say the least he nearly fell of his chair when he saw Naruto's rinnegan. To hide it he had taken after Kakashi and had pulled his headband down to hide the eye. He would reveal it to the world when he had awakened both and was strong enough to defend himself against those who would take his eyes.

Thanks guys. I hope you liked this latest chapter. Don't forget if you want a say in what 3 elements and paths Naruto gets your running out of time. I plan on showing his three elements in the next chapter and so far the vote has been for Earth, Wind, and Water. I plan on giving him the other three when he awakens the rinnegan. Don't ask for the Deva path because he needs an affinity for Gravity in order to use that paths powers. Once again guys review, tell me what you liked and what you didn't. I can only improve the story if you tell me what was good and what wasn't. Until next time.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Alright Naruto lets see it" the Hokage said after he had activated his privacy seals. Naruto pulled his head band up and he slowly opened his eye pausing for dramatic affect. The rinnegan seemed to glow unnaturally. "Incredible the eyes of the Sage. What you've all seen here will be declared a S-ranked secret. No one is to reveal to anyone what has happened to Naruto." He dismissed them and they left after Kakashi told them to meet at training ground eight tomorrow at 9:00. Naruto was heading back to his apartment when he remembered that he had asked the old man to assign a few genin teams to fix up the cottage in the woods. Turning around he headed toward the forest. Arriving at the cottage he was surprised at the condition of his new home. An area surrounding the cottage had been cleared of foliage and was replaced with sod. There was a seven foot high fence surrounding the grounds all of the walls and the roof had been repaired. Walking inside he was assaulted by the smell of fresh paint and cleaner. All of the interior walls had been painted. Looking inside he saw that the Hokage had even furnished his new place. He had a small table with four chairs in his kitchen and a full bedroom set in the other room. Walking in to a small room in the back of his new home he found his meditation room repaired but empty. Changing out of his mission clothes he decided to wander through town. He was surprised at the number of people out at this time of the night. He was wandering until he found himself in front of Ichiraku's Ramen. He went in and gorged himself on ramen walking away he went home and slept peacefully in his new bed.

Waking up he stumbled into the bathroom and screamed, "KURAMA WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY HAIR!"

 **"I told you didn't I. There was bound to be side effects with that chakra necklace merging with you. Beside it looks good and I'm kinda surprised you didn't notice your grew almost three inches in one night."** ** _'He really is surprising I knew the changes would occur but they seem to be accelerated. I didn't think his hair would finish changing colors for another few months. He truly is his heir.'_**

"Ah whatever you stupid fox. Now explain to me how I'm going to explain this to everyone, I already looked like a Kakashi copycat. First the headband and now the hair what's next a face mask?" Naruto grumbled

 **"If you want one I'm sure he'll let borrow one. But you've been putting up with this villages crap for years about me. What's different about putting up with it because you look like Kakashi?"** Naruto didn't say anything but only prepared for training getting out of his shower he put on his ninja gear only to discover his pants were to short.

"Looks like I'll need to buy new clothes again" taking some bandages he covered it up tucking his now too short pants into the bandages that covered his ankles. "Hey fur ball I've got a question for you, when will I know when the necklace has finished merging with my chakra network?"

 **"You'll feel some intense pain for a few days and when the process has completed you'll see 6 black magatama tattoos on your chest. Similar to what the necklace looked like in fact if all goes well you'll have 3 on one side and 3 on the other."** Looking at the clock Naruto had a start,

"Shit, I'm late. Well knowing Kakashi-sensei he probably isn't their yet." Little did he know that the rest of Team 7 was assembled and patiently waiting for their teammate to arrive.

"When he gets here I'm gonna pulverized him." Sakura yelled,

"Relax will you he's only a few minutes late" Sasuke said, "there's no need to pulverize him over that." Naruto showed up 15 minutes late and Sasuke spoke "Your taking this whole acting like Kakashi thing alittle far aren't you. I mean first the eye and headband, now the hair and acting late all you need now is a face mask." Naruto sighed,

"I didn't mean to change my hair, it's a side affect of the necklace and I just woke up late it's not like I'm 3 hours late or something. So Kakashi-sensei what are we going to learn today?"

"Well seeing as we didn't get to finish the water walking exercise we'll start with that and then I'll test your elemental affinities. Now follow me." He walked off to a small river that ended with a water fall. "Now when you can walk all the way down to the water fall and back again come see me." He walked a way and sat down at the base of a tree by the river. Naruto jumped in but didn't get very far. _'What am I doing wrong? I know that I have a lot of chakra but still it should be this difficult.'_ "Naruto your not focusing you chakra right. This goes for you to Sasuke, your still thinking like this is the tree climbing exercise. In order to walk on water you need to be able to eject your chakra out in small bursts. Sasuke use your Sharingan to see how Sakura's going it. Naruto see if you can see anything with your rinnegan. Naruto lifted up his headband and Sasuke activated his Sharingan. After a few minutes Sasuke spoke

"I can't see the chakra network like the byakugan but I can see small amounts of chakra leaving her feet." He stood up and found he could walk much easier, he still slipped every once and a while but he made it to the edge of the water fall and back. Naruto on the other hand was having much more trouble.

"I don't get it Kakashi-sensei I don't see anything. Sure everything looks crisper and in more detail plus I can see farther but I don't see any chakra at all."

"Try channeling a little chakra to your left eye and tell me what you see." The effects were immediate Naruto gasped,

"I can see, everything is in black and white I see chakra everywhere. There is blue fire in your stomach Kakashi-sensei and Sakura has chakra covering her feet." He suddenly fell over clutching his eye. "Damn this thing drains a lot of chakra" Naruto said.

"Hm I would guess seeing as you haven't adjusted to your new eye yet it's draining more chakra then normal." He handed him a soldier pill and Naruto stood up. Covering his eye Naruto walked out to the river and found he could walk normally. Walking back he heard Kakashi call to Sakura to come back in. "Sakura the only reason you couldn't finish this exercise is that you don't have enough chakra. That being said however your control is perfect you have the potential to become either a great medic or genjutsu master, maybe even both if you work hard enough. I've arranged for you to meet someone tomorrow who will help you with your training. Meet her at training ground 12 tomorrow morning. You have the rest of the day off but I would recommend you stay and try to increase you chakra reserves. As for the two of you were going to test your chakra affinities." He handed them each a piece of paper. "This paper is special. It's made from a tree that was grown with chakra. Channel your chakra into the paper and you'll find out what chakra nature you are. Watch this," he channeled chakra into his paper and it wrinkled. "See my affinity is lightning if your paper gets wet your water, cuts in half wind, burns fire, and if it crumbles you have earth."

"Sensei, I don't need to do this. I'm an Uchiha and all of us are fire types. I already know how to use fire style ninjutsu."

"Not necessarily Sasuke, ninja can use different elemental jutsu if they train hard enough. You'll find most jonin like myself have mastered at least two elements." Sasuke sighed and channeled chakra into his paper he was surprised when it wrinkled instead of burning. "See your a lightning type like me. Now it's Naruto's turn." Naruto's paper split in half, "and Naruto's a wind type..." He trailed off when he saw that his paper was once again changing half burned and the other half crumbled. Kakashi and Sasuke just stared at the paper "well this is a first, I've know ninja that have two chakra natures but I've never seen three before." _'There's only one person in the three nations with three chakra natures.'_ "Well I was expecting one maybe two but not three. You never cease to amaze me kid." Kakashi made a shadow clone and turned to Naruto follow him. The shadow clone gave instructions to Sasuke about how to channel his chakra into the leaf and make it wrinkle. "Alright Naruto seeing as you have three elements to train were going to use a method that will greatly reduce your training time. I'm sure that you've figured out the benefit of using shadow clones. The original reason that the Second Hokage developed the kinjutsu was for information gathering."

"Information gathering?"

"Yes now don't interrupt. You see when a shadow clone is dispelled all the memories and information the clone gathered are transferred back to the original. We're going to use this technique to hasten your training. I need you to create 300 clones have 100 do the earth leaf exercise, 100 the fire, and have the final 100 work with the wind chakra transformation." Naruto made the required number of clones and had them break off three groups to perform their assigned tasks. "Now that that's done follow me." The original Kakashi and Naruto left the clones to their respective jobs and went to a small clearing. "Okay so I'm going to be alternating between both training you and Sasuke with your eyes. Together we will unlock the secrets to that eye of yours. They both pulled up their forehead protectors revealing a fully matured Sharingan and rinnegan. "Okay for this to work I'm going to want you to get used to using that eye. When I first got my Sharingan I could only keep it active for a few minutes at a time and even now it still drains a lot of my chakra." Naruto channeled chakra to his eye and once again he found that he could see in greater detail and could see chakra. "Now create two clones and come at me with everything you've got." Naruto nodded and almost collapsed when he did. He could see three different points of view at once and his brain couldn't handle it. Kakashi rushed over to his student worried. "Naruto what happened, I've seen you make thousands of clones before."

"It wasn't the number it was what I saw. When I had the rinnegan active I could see through my clones eyes. It was like I had multiple points of view."

"Incredible, it seems we've already discovered a power of the rinnegan, shared vision. Naruto I want you to create just one clone this time. If you can master this power say good by to blind spots." Naruto stood back up and managed to create just one clone he positioned one in front and one in back of Kakashi.

"I still don't get it Kakashi-sensei how will this get rid of my blind spots." Kakashi sighed,

"Naruto don't move keep your clone where it is." Kakashi snuck up behind him and there a punch at his head only for it to be dodged. "Now do you see what I mean. With this power you'll have 360 degree vision that rivals the byakugan. Forgive me Naruto but if we're going to unlock the powers of your eyes I'm going to have to drive brink of death and back again." With that he leapt away and began to throw kunai and shuriken at him. "Lesson one taijutsu" he sped towards Naruto throwing fierce punches and kicks leaving Naruto little time to dodge or counter attack. Naruto was slowly being cut and bruised. He had just been punched on the chin when something inside him snapped. Golden flames erupted around his body healing his wounds he began his own assault on Kakashi. He quickly overpowered him and drove him to the edge of the forest. But before long the sudden burst of energy left him and he collapsed breathing heavily. Looking at his hand he saw the remanence of the golden flames dancing around his hand before they went out. Kakashi looked at the boy in wonder, _'what was that power he just displayed just now? 'All of his wounds have healed, and the strength of his punches was unbelievable they may not have been as strong as guys but certainly a high chunin maybe low jonin level. What is he?'_ He was interrupted by a snoring Naruto he sighed and laid him next to a tree. He smiled at the sleeping form of the boy _'well I best go see how Sasuke's doing.'_ What he saw only increased his faith in his team Sasuke was siting under a tree with several leaves stuck between his fingers and they already showed signs of wrinkling. "Looks like you've made some progress."

"Yah, but it's slow going. This is a lot harder than it looks. So what happened to Naruto?"

"Oh nothing much, just a small case of chakra exhaustion. We found a little more out about his new eye. I must say it has frightening potential. It seems to be the perfect blend of both the byakugan and the Sharingan. Come on you can take a little break for now and we'll start training that Sharingan of yours. The first thing we need to do is get your speed up to par so..."

Meanwhile Naruto woke up, "ugh feels like I've been hit by a truck" looking around he didn't see anyone he went to the clearing where all his clones were supposed to be he found the clearing empty but the ground was covered with leaves. Sitting down he began to meditate and sort through the memories of the clones. He was still far from mastering the exercise but still closer than he was before. He sat like that for several hours until both Kakashi and Sasuke found him. Kakashi informed him that the rest of the day was his to do whatever he wanted and left. Naruto and Sasuke both left leaving for their respective homes. When Naruto arrived he went to his meditation room intending to speak with Kurama about his new found power. "Hey fur ball any thoughts about what happened in training today?"

 **"I wish you would stop with the nicknames. But now that you mentioned something yes, it seems you've been subconsciously drawing on my power. Remember those golden flames you saw around your body? That was my chakra leaking through the seal it seems to kick in when you feel intense emotions such as anger or fear. I'll investigate some more about that and in time you'll start training to use my chakra, right now it exhausts you but given a little bit of practice and training you should be able to master my power. Know I've been digging through my memories trying to find anything related to the powers of the rinnegan and I've found a little more information. Okay well if you remember I said that the rinnegan had six unique powers, well I've discovered the name of two of them they are the Deva Path and Human Path. Don't ask me what these paths do or if you can use them because I don't know. And you were right they powers are split equally between the two eyes but what you might not know is that the rinnegan also gives the user an affinity for all six elements."**

"Wait back up. Six elements, Kakashi-sensei told us that there are only five elements and besides I was tested today for my elemental affinities and they were earth, fire, and wind."

 **"If you wait just a minute I was getting to that part. Now to answer your question about your elemental abilities is seems like the paths they are evenly distributed between the eyes. The left grants you an affinity for earth, fire, and wind while the right eye gives you an affinity for water, lightning, and gravity. Now moving on to the gravity question, your sensei was correct when he told you that there are five elements normally. But what he doesn't know is that the rinnegan grants you the ability to control gravity making it the sixth element."**

"Wow, is this all you found out. I mean how long have you been looking exactly?"

 **"Oh shut up brat. You try sifting through thousands of years worth of memories, don't you remember the size of that library downstairs. Remember all the red scrolls, well those are all my memories and knowledge. I've lived far longer than you can imagine."**

"Right sorry about that Kurama, I'll leave you to your work." The fox didn't even look up but grabbed a massive scroll and began reading looking for anymore information regarding the rinnegan." Naruto sat up and walked out side with his sword and began to practice his sword stances. He was getting pretty good at it and even though he was no where near the level of a master he was improving greatly. After about an hour of practicing he went to sleep. He got up the next morning stumbling around his new house for about 20 minutes before he was ready to go. He was walking through town when he stumbled across Team 10 and their sensei Asuma Sarutobi.

"Hey guys what are you up to" Naruto said, Shikamaru yawned before responding

"Just some troublesome mission were supposed to meet our client at the main gate in a few minutes. So what's up with the new look?"

"What? Oh well in my mission I was blinded in my left eye so I cover up the scar with my headband."

"Oh that sucks" munch munch, "I'd hate to be blinded I wouldn't be able to eat barbecue as fast. So" munch munch "what happened to your hair? You trying to imitate your sensei or something?" Choji said in between bites of barbecue chips.

"Oh no nothing like that" he rubbed the back of his head "I don't know what happened to it all of a sudden it just started to change colors." Naruto lied and hoped they wouldn't remember, "oh hey Asuma-sensei I was asking Kakashi-sensei about wind style exercises but he didn't really know any but he said you would so got any advice for me?"

"Sure thing, I'm kinda surprised that he's teaching you guys elemental jutsu normally you don't start until your chunin or jonin. But I suppose I might have a few pieces of advice for a fellow wind style user. Okay when your doing the leaf exercise imagine the two haves are grinding against each other sharpening each other. I know that it's hard to explain but this is the hardest part of trying to learn wind style jutsu. Learning the jutsu itself is easy but understanding the concept behind wind and trying to recreate it is the hard part. Now if you'll excuse us we need to get going." Team 10 walked away but Asuma say that something was wrong with Shikamaru and decided to voice his concerns, "what's wrong?"

"I don't know but somethings not right that's for sure. Naruto was never the best lier but did you see how nervous he got when he mentioned his left eye. And I don't believe that he has no idea about what happened to his hair. No somethings off here. And I won't rest until I find out what it is."

Naruto kept walking until he was at the training grounds. Sasuke was already there but Kakashi was nowhere in sight. Naruto sighed "well I guess it's no surprise he always was late before. I guess we just got lucky the past few days. We can't always expect him to be early now can we. Do you want to have a sparring match while we wait?"

"Sure" Sasuke smiled activating his Sharingan "let's see what that eye of yours can do." Naruto smiled and pulled up his headband revealing his rinnegan. He channeled chakra to it and it began to glow. They began to test each other out slowly, but little did they know that Kakashi was waiting in a tree watching the fight. The two boys fought to a standstill until Kakashi broke it up.

"Alright that's enough, let's start training. It's the same as before only I'll be working with Sasuke instead of Naruto today. Naruto instead I want you to have your clones work on the leaf exercise while you work on your sword moves. Try increasing the seals to level two and when you can move freely increase the level." Both Sasuke and Naruto went home that night dead dog tired only to driven to the brink of death again the next day. They almost begged the Hokage to give them a mission after a week of training. Sakura had improved greatly under the tutelage of genjutsu mistress Kurenai and when she hadn't been training she had been working at the hospital or reading medical ninjutsu scrolls. To their dismay they found that they would have to stay in the village because Kakashi had recommended them for the Chunin exams. Kakashi simply grinned when the Hokage broke the news to his genin. "See your stuck with me we still have another week of training to go before the chunin exams. Get ready for hell." Naruto and Sasuke shivered while Sakura just gave them a strange look.

Next chapter the chunin exams begin!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Hey guys quick little note before we begin. First off I have to apologize for not get this chapter written as fast as some of the others, life has been pretty hectic with finals and 3 projects to work on and before I knew it Christmas had arrived and then the universe just interfered so I hope you'll forgive me I know there really is no excuse for letting it go this long, but I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me. So without further-ado let's begin with chapter 8 shall we?

Yes, hell was the only word to describe what their sensei had put them through. Naruto and Sasuke hadn't had a single day off in almost a week. He would forcibly drag them from their beds at six in the morning for laps with his friend guy and his team around the village. Needless to say both boys had learned to meet their teacher at the gate or else find themselves doused in cold water. After they had finished they practiced their taijutsu for an hour with Kakashi picking apart and exposing every flaw in their respective styles. They had ten minutes for lunch and after he would either work with Sasuke and his eyes and have Naruto practice his kenjutsu or elemental chakra transformations or he would work with Naruto with his eye. Kakashi really didn't have a good method for training Naruto's eye so he would first have him keep it active for as long as he could and then push him and hard as he could without breaking him. It yielded results very fast. Naruto had mastered four clones vision with his eye activated and Kurama had told him about the last four paths. Today was the last day before the chunin exams and Sakura was joining them to improve their teamwork and learn about the new abilities each teammate had acquired in their training.

Out of all of them she had improved the most after training with genjutsu mistress Kurenai Yuuhi. She had learned multiple genjutsu and had increased her reserves slightly. It also seemed that she had been able to snap her out of some her fan girl ways. While she still pestered him for dates she had stopped fawning over him unconditionally. Team 7 stood by the three poles where they had become genin, today was the day that they showed their sensei how much they had grown. Their objective was simple land a hit on him in ten minutes and he would give them the forms to the chunin exams. It sounded easy until their sensei told them that he wouldn't hold back like he did last time, "I'm not going to hold back, if you three are chunin material then you should be able to match me when I use an equivalent strength. That means eyes active gentlemen, don't hold back if you want to go to the chunin exams." The three genin didn't say anything, Sasuke activated his Sharingan and Naruto pulled up his head band revealing the rinnegan glowing in an evil light. He nodded to Sasuke who quickly went through the hand signs and shouted,

"Fire style: Fire ball jutsu," and as he exhaled a huge mass of fire was expelled from his lungs. Using the distraction Naruto and Sakura fled into the trees with Kakashi close on their heals. Naruto created a dozen shadow clones had them split in four teams of three and henge into his team mates. Each of his clone teams split off heading into different directions Sakura hid in a tree while Naruto headed up to a tree top to look for Sasuke. He was at the top of a tree when he winced and rubbed his chest right below his neckline. It didn't take long for the altogether familiar duck butt shaped hair cut to become visible. He jumped down in front of Sasuke and started talking,

"Look," Naruto said, "we don't have much time until sensei finishes hunting down the decoy teams I created. Follow me and with Sakura well formulate a plan." They both raced off, after traveling for several minutes they found her at the base of a rotted tree. "Listen guys, even with all of us we won't beat him in a head on fight. Even without the Sharingan we'll still need to distract him first. So here's what we're going to do..."

Kakashi had just thrown a kunai dispelling the last trio of hendged clones. "You've improved...When I first met you your only thought was to charge in on me head on." _'His mastery of the shadow clones is evolving. Combined with the detail of this henge, even my Sharingan wouldn't be able to pick up the difference between these clones and the real thing! Even if they don't beat me I feel confident that my team is already chunin material.'_ "Well I've already wasted enough time, time to go and track down the real ones." Just as he was about to leap off he caught a glimpse of pink hair moving though the forest. "Come on out Sakura I know your there."

 _'Just a little more time, the genjutsu is almost ready. Come on Naruto just buy me a little more time.'_

"Sasuke come on he's already seen her. Now all we need to do is lure him to the trap." Sasuke nodded and activating his Sharingan he leapt into battle. Kakashi was just about to follow Sakura when he felt Sasuke's and Naruto's bodies fall into place beside him. He raised both of his arms to block the incoming kicks. "Come on Sensei, your fights with us."

"Well I'll give you this Naruto you skills may not have improved, but one things for sure you mouth has gotten bigger. Let's go." He drew two kunai from his weapons pouch and holding them in reverse grip blocked simultaneous blows from both Naruto's sword and Sasuke's kunai. They worked in tandem both moving in and out do each other's openings Sasuke would block a kunai and jump backwards just in time to avoid the edge of Naruto's glistening red blade. They moved like they had fought side by side countless times and their moves complemented the others. They had continued on fighting for several minutes each of their movement getting slower and more ragged as the experience and strength of the copy ninja wore them down. It was long before Sasuke's kunai slipped from his grip and Naruto's sword went flying as Kakashi took advantage of the opening. Kakashi body flickered behind the two boys holding a kunai to each of their throats. "As much as I enjoyed this fight gentleman I must say I'm disappointed, I thought you would've learned your lesson this week...you can't beat me in a straight up fight. Not yet at least..." He trailed off as the forms of the two boys suddenly disappeared from his view. "Genjutsu huh should've known it was too easy." He lifted his headband to reveal his Sharingan eye. In doing so he sealed his fate because the minute he broke free of Sakura's genjutsu he was immediately cast into Sasuke's when the two dojutsus crossed eye lines. When he finally broke free of the second genjutsu he was confronted with three kunai all pointed at his body. Kakashi laughed, "good work you three, especially you Sakura to be able to cast a genjutsu and have it replace a real battle in the middle of combat without a dojutsu is extremely difficult. You chakra control has really been refined. Sasuke your mastery of the Sharingan is improving I have no doubt you'll soon unlock the third tomoe. And finally you Naruto, I lied when I said that you hadn't improved your mastery of the shadow clones is continuing to grow and you analytical skills are improving with leaps and bounds." He reached into the folds of his jonin vest and procured three sheets of paper. "This is the application for the chunin exams, I had to go through a lot to get you this shot and I'm counting on you to prove that I wasn't wrong. Some didn't want you to go..."

 _(Flashback)_

 _All the current Jonin sensei's had gathered in the Hokage's office to discuss upcoming chunin exams._

 _"The first exam will be conducted by Ibiki Morino." The minute that the Hokage mentioned the interrogator's name every Jonin sensei flinched, Morino was known for his devastating mind games and many sympathized with this group of Genin. "This exam will be a ten question written exam. Morino will decide who passes and who fails, as he has put a hidden meaning into one of the test questions. Those who pass will continue on to the second exam. This exam will be proctored by Anko Mitarashi. It will be a survival test conducted in training ground 44 also known as the forest of death. Hayate Gekkō will proctor the third and final elimination test. Teams from the Sand, Cloud, and Stone will be attending this years exams. Would the Jonin instructors who plan on entering their teams into the exams raise their hands." Several hands went up including Guy's that narrowly missed another Jonin._

 _"My team of youthful compatriots will take the exam by storm with the power of youth. Team 9 will compete in this years chunin exams."_

 _"Very well Guy is there anyone else?" The Hokage asked, and almost as if they planned it Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma all raised their hands._

 _"Team 7 consisting of Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki will complete in this years chunin exams."_

 _(Flashback ends)_

Naruto was walking back to his house in thÿe forest when all of a sudden his body shuddered and his vision became blurred. Leaning against a tree he was consumed by a coughing fit. When his vision came back into focus he noticed some blood on his hand from wiping his mouth. Stumbling back to his house he muttered "what's happening to me?" Opening the gate to his humble abode he made his way to his house. "Kurama tell me what's going on."

 **"I told you that the necklace fusing with you would have adverse affects didn't I. There's always a price to power and it's only going to get worse. Your entire chakra network is being destroyed and rebuilt in order to handle your new chakra. The more you use jutsu the faster and more painful the process will become."**

"When will this end? I know you said when I gained six magatama tattoos on my chest but how long will that take. I need my chakra to fight I can't fight without it."

 **"I don't know kit by my estimation with the amount of chakra you used in your fight with Kakashi...probably another few weeks. Now get some sleep tomorrow you need to go to the academy to start the chunin exams."** ** _'This isn't good competing in the shape he's in right now is asking for trouble. We'll just have to wait and see what the competition is like, my chakra can only take away some of the pain. His entire body is fighting itself.'_**

When Naruto woke up the next morning his entire body felt like it was on fire. It took everything he had just to get out of bed. Moving to the shower he turned on the water to as hot as he could bear and let it just soak into his aching muscles. After awhile he stepped out and got dressed. Making his way to his door he grabbed his sword and a black coat. He belted his sword to his waste and made for the academy. Waiting outside were both Sasuke and Sakura nodding to both of them they made for the third floor. He was surprised when they stopped and looked at a classroom on the second floor. Looking up he saw what was troubling them. The room had two people guarding it and even though they were clearly on the second floor it was marked with the room number 309. Their room assignment he stopped and pondered for a moment and then it came to him he whispered in his teammates ears "it's just a genjutsu to sort out the weak." Just as he finished Kiba and his team had arrived,

"Your not fooling anyone with this genjutsu" and as he finished Naruto slapped his face

"I was just about to say that we should ignore this one but I guess it couldn't be helped." And quick as the eye could see a boy clad in a green spandex unitard blocked the incoming kick from both Kiba and the chunin guarding the fake classroom. "He's certainly one to watch" Sasuke nodded his head in agreement "come on let's go". As his team was walking up to the staircase they were confronted by the spandex teen and his team.

"Are you the renowned genius of this years rookies, Sasuke Uchiha?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I am the beautiful green beast of Konoha Rock Lee and I challenge you to a duel."

"Humph if you've already heard of my reputation and still want to fight your either incredibly brave or stupid. Fine follow me and we'll have our little fight just don't be upset when you lose." The six of them walked to a small auditorium with a balcony for Neji, Tenten, Sakura, and Naruto to watch from. "You asked for this fight," Sasuke said, "what are the rules?"

"You can use whatever you want but I will stick with Taijutsu. I am a genius of hard work, I will prove to the world that even someone born with no talent can beat someone like you."

"I'll try not to disappoint Lee. But I'll warn you right now I won't go easy on you" Sasuke opened his eyes to reveal a two tomoe Sharingan in each eye. Lee didn't waste any time and left straight into battle with a leaf whirlwind. Naruto up in the balcony frowned as Neji had activated his byakugon and was keenly observing Sasuke's movements.

"Interesting Sasuke's using it so soon." Just as Sakura was about to respond Naruto was consumed by a violent coughing fit. Clutching the railing tightly Sakura came up behind him and said,

"Are you alright Naruto?"

Naruto drew a shuddering breath and responded "I'm fine, just a small cold that's all." Neji narrowed his eyes when he said that. Neji had seen the small amounts of blood leak onto Naruto's hand. Focusing his byakugan on his chakra network he discovered that it was in a state on constant flux, but that's not what surprised him the most, what surprised him was that when he focused in on his head he discovered that there was a golden light shining behind his headband. Narrowing his eyes he turned his attention back to the fight,

"Dancing leaf shadow?" Sasuke muttered under his breath,

"Keen eye" _'I will do all I must to prove myself...even if it means breaking the rule and using that jutsu.'_ Bandages began to unwrap from Lee's forearms when all of a sudden they were caught in the mouth of a large red shelled turtle.

"That's enough Lee" the turtle said, "you know the rules your sensei placed on that forbidden jutsu. You shouldn't be flaunting it in frount of your opponents in a meaningless spar. Come on Gai is waiting for you." As the turtle finished a seemingly grown up clone of lee appeared on the turtles back.

"Lee" Gai said, "I'm very disappointed in you. However I know how easy it is to get caught up in the youthfulness of this springtime spar. So your punishment will be light 500 laps around the village." After he finished this statement everyone's sweat dropped and turned to stare at them finally it was Neji who voiced his concerns,

"Sensei don't you think that should wait until after the exams? He won't have time to enter if he's off running laps."

"Goodness gracious Neji your right, well we'll just just have to wait until after the exams. Right Lee?"

"Gai-Sensei!"

"Lee!" The two men embraced each other on the beautiful landscape with a setting sun and waves crashing against the rocks. Sasuke tried to rip out his eyes as the memory was forever etched onto his brain with his Sharingan. Neji and Tenten just stood there while Neji pinched his nose. Sasuke was the first to take action,

"Come on guys. We'll be late unless we get a move on." They moved away from team 9 they stayed behind to receive some wisdom from their mentor. They made their way into the classroom and almost as if she had some kind of sixth sense Ino immediately gravitated towards them and latched onto Sasuke. They made their way towards the other rookies while Sasuke dragged Ino along.

"So you guys too huh?" Shikamaru said with the same bored expression on his face Naruto was about to respond when Kiba burst into the conversation with all of his previous enthusiasm.

"Huh, finally ditched the orange jumpsuit. Looks good but whats up with you copying your sensei I mean the only thing you missing is the face mask." After he finished both Sakura and Sasuke tensed and looked at Naruto, sighing he responded

"A couple of weeks ago we were sent on a mission" Naruto turned his head towards the ceiling and continued, "in order to buy enough time for Sakura and the prisoners to escape I fought three opponents at once. I didn't last long if Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke hadn't shown up when they had I would've lost a lot more than just my eye." Kiba looked like he was about to respond when a grey haired teen with glasses interrupted him.

"Your this years rookies right? You might want to stop attracting so much attention to yourselves. I'm Kabuto Yakushi this is my seventh time taking the exams and let me tell you there no picnic. I have information here about just about every contestant here." Sasuke was the first person to speak up,

"What do you have on Rock Lee of the Leaf and Gaara of the Desert?"

"Oh you already have their names well that makes it easy. Let's see Lee's a genin who graduated in the class before you. He's on a team with Neji Hyūga and Tenten. This is their first year in the exams. His ninjutsu and genjutsu are practically nonexistent and his taijutsu is exceptional. Gaara's a unique case he's reportedly gone on several high ranking missions and hasn't taken a single injury. Sorry my information on him is a little lax but keep in mind that even a little can be the difference between life and death." Ibiki Morino chose that moment to appear in the classroom with a poof of smoke.

"Alrighty then children settle down and listen up. Here's how we're going to get started you'll pass over your paper work to one of my assistants and in turn you'll be assigned a number. When everyone was seated he found that he was sitting in the middle of the classroom next to Hinata. Sasuke was on the edge behind him and a few rows back was Sakura on the other side. "Alright then I'm Ibiki Morino and I'll be your proctor for your first exam. This will be a ten question written exam." As he was talking several assistants began to pass out the tests "now before we begin we have a few rules so listen up I won't be answering any questions. Rule number one, this will be graded based on a team score. Second the scoring is based on ten points one for each question so if you get three wrong you wind up with a seven. The third rule is that anyone caught cheating will be deducted two points and if you are caught five times you fail and so does your team. Anyone caught cheating doesn't deserve to be here. You will be monitored by these eagle eye ninja across the room and be sure ladies and gentlemen nothing escapes their eyes. Well with that out of the way you'll have two hours to complete this test. Begin!"

Almost immediately there was a flurry a paper and pencils as everyone flipped over the test and picked up their pencils. Almost immediately there were signs and exclamations of disbelief the questions _'these questions are incredibly hard no genin should be able to answer them. So what's the true objective here?'_ Naruto thought and behind him Sakura and Sasuke's thoughts were very similar _'I bet I'm the only person here that could understand these questions and even then that only because I studied like crazy during the academy.'_ And _'okay so why do we only get points taken off if we cheat? Normally it's grounds for an automatic failure that's it there asking us to cheat and not get caught!'_ Similarly Naruto had come to the same conclusion all around him people were cheating Gaara had created his third eye, Kiba and Shino were using their bugs and dog, Tenten mirrors, Sasuke Sharingan. _'Now think Naruto how are you going to get the answers? Maybe that earth style jutsu...ill have to be careful I haven't completely mastered it yet.'_ Discretely he made a shadow clone and had it perform earth style: Chameleon jutsu it disappeared found the chunin with all the answers memorized it and when it dispelled Naruto gained the knowledge required to answer the test questions. When he finished he put his head down and tried to ignore the pain radiating from his stomach after performing the jutsu. He woke up when time was called, a little less than half made it and now it was time for the tenth question Ibiki wasted no time and immediately began,

"Now then the rules for the tenth question are different than the previous rules. First you can chose to not hear the question..."

"Wait what's the catch, what happens if we chose not to answer it!" Temari exclaimed

"I was just getting to that if you or anyone on your team chooses not to answer the question the entire team fails but if you stay and get it wrong you'll be barred from taking the chunin exams ever again...in other words you'll be stuck a genin forever!"

"Get out that's not fair, there's plenty of people here who have taken the exam more than once."

"I guess they got lucky I wasn't making the rules then but I am now."

"I'm out I just can't handle it."

"Number 62 fail! 71 and 24 fail."

"I'm done that's it for me."

"Yah me too."

"Numbers 78, 22, 86, 44, 37, and 17 fail." This continued until only about half of the 52 teams remained.

"Congratulations to all those who stayed, you pass." Ibiki smiled "this test was never really about the paper test or the mysterious tenth question. It was all about information gathering and whether or not you have what it takes to be a chunin. Those caught cheating weren't ready to be a chunin information gathering is essential in the ninja world. The tenth question was to test whether or not you had the right temperament to be a chunin squad leader. In this world you'll likely be given missions that could result in the deaths of you or your comrades. We don't have the luxury of not taking the mission because of personal ambition or fears. As a chunin you must accept the risks that come with it." He unwrapped his bandana to reveal a scarred head, "remember in the ninja world information is everything and you have to do anything to get it or keep it, one final piece of advice never trust information from a captured ninja until properly verified..." Just then a woman came busting through the window and hung up a banner that read Anko Mitarashi chunin exams proctor stage two.

"All righty then kiddos are you ready then come on follow me let's get this test started." Everyone's sweat just dropped,

"Your early again. I haven't finished explaining things to them."

"Fine meet me training ground 44 at eight' o 'clock tomorrow morning. Goodness Ibiki you must be losing your touch, there's still half of them here, you did remember give the question right?"

"Yes I did now get a move on. Where was I...oh right as the proctor of the first exam I declare this stage of the chunin exams complete!"

So what did you think of this chapter? Remember I apologize for the lack of updates recently but I got caught up in the crime show Numb3rs, it's really good and because it over its great for binge watching. Anyway I recently updated my profile and you guys should check it out I put up some future story ideas that I've been mulling around in my head for awhile also check out some of my favorite stories I've read a lot of fanfiction recently and some that I've saved are really good. Thanks for reading and don't forget to review.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Naruto had to drag himself out of bed the next morning, he felt as though he had been steam rolled. Every part of his body simply ached, stumbling into the bathroom he found that a shower did nothing to help ease his pain like it had before. Looking in the mirror he saw that his hair was disheveled and he had bags under his eyes. Not even bothering to fix his hair he simply let it air dry. He pulled his standard ninja uniform out and grabbing his coat and sword he walked out the door. He pulled the coat on as he shivered, the crisp bite of autumn was present in the air. It wouldn't be long before the leaves began to change colors. He smiled as he belted on his sword, today was the day of the second part of the chunin exams. Nothing would stand in his way, they would have to kill him before they would deny him the promotion. Looking up he saw that Sasuke was waiting for him by the bridge. Walking over to him he greeted him,

"good morning."

"You look like crap, you know that you have to pass these exams with skill right, you can't sleep through it and expect to pass."

"My illness is getting worse; it won't be long now; before the change I mean." He had told his teammates what to expect in the coming weeks to say that Kakashi had not been pleased was an understatement. If he had known what was happening to his student, he would've never placed his team in the exams but unfortunately for him it was out of his hands now. With Naruto unable to use large amounts of chakra which had always been his trump card and with his stamina effectively cut in half Naruto would have a hard time to survive in these exams let alone win. "Sakura not here yet huh?"

"No," Sasuke said, "I only arrived a few minutes before you did."

"Come on then, her house is on the way to training ground 44 so we might as well get a move on. We'll swing by her house on the way to part two of this exam." The two chunin hopefuls made their way to Sakura's house only to find their quick to anger pink haired teammate bustling down the stairs. "What took you so long? Never mind we'll be late if we let you explain, it was probably your hair or something." They took off running with Sakura trying to deny that she had spent the last twenty minutes brushing her hair. When they had arrived they found that most of the teams had already arrived. Looking around they found that a massive overgrown forest greeted them. The forest was surrounded by chain link fence. Massive caterpillars moved up trees and birds were devoured by larger than average snakes. Finally, Sakura broke the silence and spoke what was on every genin's mind,

"This whole place just completely creeps me out!" unbeknownst to them one Anko Mitarashi arrived at the gate and smiled,

"It should, this place is called the forest of death and soon enough you're going to find out why." Her eyes scanned the crowd before her when they fell upon young Naruto, who was trying very hard to not fall asleep on Sasuke's shoulder. She smiled and said, "So it looks like we've got a tough guy among us huh?" In one fluid motion her hand moved in a blur and drew a kunai from her pouch. Her aim was true and Naruto soon found himself with a cut on his cheek and a smiling proctor right behind him. "You're not afraid are you? Tough guys like you tend to leave their blood all over this forest." Just as she had finished talking Shikamaru's eyes immediately came right back into focus and he began to pay attention immediately on what she had to say. She was about to wipe up the blood oozing out of his cut when she spun around with a kunai in hand. She was stopped by a grass ninja with a kunai held with her tongue.

"I was just returning your knife,"

"Why thank you grass ninja," Anko responded. "You know I only recommend you stand this close behind me if you want to reach a premature end."

"My pardon, with the sight of blood and your knife slicing through my hair I'm afraid I just became a little excited. I meant you no harm." The two women's eyes crossed one more time and Anko broke the tension.

"Likewise," and both of them walked away Anko made it to the gate before addressing the crowd, "now before we get started…" she reached into the folds of her trench coat and pulled out a piece of paper. "Relax, it's just a standard consent form," two chunin walked up behind her with large stacks of paper. "Before I can administer the test you'll have to sign this form. You see this portion of the chunin exams can be dangerous and as such you'll need to sign this form granting us permission to administer it to you and in case anything goes wrong, like I don't know, like in the case of your death your family can't hold us responsible." Before she could go much further several of the teams began to murmur to each other.

"What does she mean, 'like our death' I'm telling you man, this lady is crazy."

"Alright maggots, if I have your attention I'll start explaining what this portion of the exams is all about. The forest of death will tax every one of your survival skills."

 _'Survival skills, what a drag,'_ thought Shikamaru as he read over the consent form he'd been given.

"First," Anko said unrolling a scroll containing a map of the forest. "the 44th training ground is a circular enclosed training ground that has 44 locked gate entrances that are all equidistant from the center. There are rivers and streams, and poisonous animals and plants. "It is here that the test will take place, and the test consists of an anything goes battle royal in order to get your hands on these." In her hands were two scrolls one marked heaven that was a light tan and one marked earth that was a dark brown. "Each team will receive either a heaven or an earth scroll, in order to complete the test, you must arrive at the locked tower at the center of the forest with both scrolls. Before I turn you over to the two chunin sitting behind the desk over there I'll have to go over a few rules with you. There are two requirements in order to pass the test, first all members of your team will have to make it to the tower. Second there is a time limit, you must complete the task within five days."

"Five days out there!?" Ino screeched,

"What are we supposed to do for food!?" Choji complained, Anko smiled

"Look around, the forest is full of things to eat. There's more than enough to feed all of you." Kabuto pushed his glasses up on his face before responding,

"But that's not all that's in there, the forest is full of man eating animals and poisonous plants."

"Ah man, there's no way I can last five whole days without my barbeque chips."

"This test is designed to test endurance; it simulates what life is like behind enemy lines. Surrounded by enemies you won't have time to rest you'll have to keep a constant watch. Oh and before I forget remember to not open the scrolls until you make it to the tower, you'll regret it if you do. Now head over to that desk over there to get you gate and scroll, just one last piece of advice for you. Just don't die." Naruto and his team made it over to the desk and waited in line. When it was their turn each of them turned in their permission forms and they received a slip of paper with gate 22 written on it and a heaven scroll.

When they had made it to their gate Naruto immediately laid down on the ground. The ninja in charge of the gate had yet to make it to their gate so he may as well get a few moments of shut eye before he arrived. "You sure you're okay Naruto? I mean first you nearly fall asleep on my shoulder and now you're about to fall asleep before the test begins." Naruto without moving or opening his eyes responded,

"I'll be fine Sasuke, besides even in my weakened condition I'm still on the strongest team here. We've studied under Kakashi the man who is said to have mastered a thousand jutsu. No genin here can hold a candle to what we've learned."

"Sure, but when the fists start flying I'll take the lead."

"You're right Naruto," Sakura said, "but all of that strength won't mean anything without a plan." Sasuke nodded, he pulled Naruto to his feet and Sakura continued "unlike Team 8 were not trackers, so we won't be able to track down opposing teams, so our best bet is to haul butt to the tower and set up traps for the teams that arrive. Well take their scrolls and we win." Sasuke and Naruto nodded,

"Good plan," Sasuke said and Sakura blushed "I'll take the scroll." He was about to put it in his pouch when Naruto grabbed his arm.

"Wait," he said "transform it into something else." Sasuke nodded and it became a tan colored bracelet that he put one. "There even if something goes wrong, now they won't find our scroll." Just before the clock struck noon the jonin showed up, he unlocked the gate and stood in front of it. Just as the clock struck twelve he opened the gate and genin at every gate raced forth eager to compete. Blood was the only thing on Gaara's mind, Neji was trying unsuccessfully to reign in his youth compatriot Lee. The only thing on his mind was to please his sensei Gai. Shikamaru was explaining his plan to his team and the Grass ninja planned to go after who they called "the three brats". The sound ninja looked forwards to their real mission, everywhere the chunin hopefuls only had one thought on their minds, to win.

Kiba, Hinata, and Shino stopped in the clearing, thanks to Hinata's byakugan they had found them. Only thing left to do was lay the net and attach the ninja wire to it. The three of them stood in the clearing and waited for their first victims. It wasn't long before a foreign village team made their way toward them. Smiling they began to talk amongst themselves,

"What pathetic excuses for ninja. The way they talk out in the open, it's almost like they want to be attacked."

"Yah, they don't even know what's about to happen to them." Little did these ninjas know that Akamaru had already warned Kiba of their visitors.

Their screams could be heard by every team in the vicinity, Anko smiled "looks like the fun has already started."

Team 7 stopped when they heard the screams, they looked to the sky and saw a flock of birds fly out of the trees some little ways off. "Best stay away from whatever happened over there," Sasuke said.

"I'll be right back okay. Nature calls you know?" Naruto walked a small way off to do his business. When he walked back Naruto was attacked by Sasuke. He pulled out a kunai and immediately went to town on him. Slash after slash Naruto struggled to defend himself. "Hey, just what is your problem anyway?" Backing up he found himself next to Sakura, "better watch yourself Sakura I think he's gone crazy." Sakura pulled out a kunai and he turned to look at her, "what are you doing?" In a flash Sasuke capitalized on his momentary lax in focus, he drove his foot into Naruto's midsection sending him flying into the tree behind him. When his eye refocused he found himself disarmed and with Sakura and Sasuke above him with their kunai at his throat.

"What have you done with him?" Naruto just looked at him as if he was crazy, "Tell me what you have done with Naruto!" Sasuke shouted, Sakura glanced over at Sasuke. Although she wasn't sure what was going on she knew that something was up. Sasuke catching the look said, "look at his cheek" what she saw only confirmed her suspicions there wasn't a cut on it looking closer at him she noticed one other thing.

"Alright" she said, "undo the henge."

"What are you talking about Sakura? It's me Naruto."

"Huh, you must really think were fools," Sasuke said, "Naruto is right handed and yet your kunai holster is on your left leg. You also wouldn't know this but Naruto got a cut on the cheek earlier today. So you can drop the act you're not fooling anyone." In a poof of smoke their one eyed white haired friend disappeared and a rain ninja in a tan body suit with a respirator took his place.

"You got me. Now then which one of you has the scroll, if you hand it over nicely I might just let you live." Sasuke's Sharingan flared to life,

"You want it? Come and take it then." The rain ninja wasted no time, immediately he sprinted towards Sasuke. Sasuke leapt back his hands flying through the signs, "Fire Style: Phoenix flower jutsu." He put two fingers to his lips and a series of small fire bombs flew targeting the enemy ninja.

"Hah you're going to have to do better than that if you ever hope to beat me." He threw a series of kunai. Sasuke dodged them but what he didn't realize was that there was a paper bomb attached to one of the kunai. Sasuke dropped from the tree and hit the ground before he could even get up the enemy was right behind him with a kunai at his neck.

"Sorry this is one test you fail. Now hand over the scroll!" Before Sasuke could react Naruto threw a kunai at the ninja from behind having been freed by Sakura earlier. Sasuke wasted no time as the rain ninja fled up into the trees to escape the knife, focusing his chakra he held the kunai at the bottom of his foot and using the accuracy of the Sharingan he kicked the kunai directly toward the rain ninja. It hit dead on and the ninja unceremoniously hit the ground.

Naruto and Sakura met Sasuke on the forest floor around the body. With a blink Sasuke's eyes returned to normal, without saying a word Naruto bent down to search the body.

"Great it's of no use to us. He was carrying a heaven scroll too, we might as well keep moving but before we do I'll do a quick perimeter check." Closing his left eye, he lifted his headband exposing his Rinnegan focusing his chakra he searched for anything out of the ordinary what he found only served to chill his blood. "Everyone get moving, right now, no questions I'll explain later." He took off with his team right behind him, it wasn't long before a question was forming on Sasuke's lips, "To answer your question, Sasuke, right now three large chakra signatures are heading this way." He tugged the headband covering his eye again "my Rinnegan can't make out shapes very well, but whoever is pursuing us is no genin. Their chakra output is mid jonin at the very least and one of them has a very malicious feel to it. Here Sasuke burn this extra scroll we don't want it falling into enemy hands." He handed the Uchiha the extra heaven scroll they had taken from the enemy rain ninja and he lit it on fire with a small fire style jutsu.

They had only been traveling for a short while when Naruto felt something scratch his cheek. The three of them stopped and Sasuke gave him a strange look, "why are we stopping?"

"I thought I felt something fly past me right now." He didn't get any further when a massive blast of wind blew right past them. Sasuke grabbed Sakura with one hand and a tree branch with the other. If one was to look at an aerial view of the forest a massive section of it would now be missing with a canyon splitting Sakura and Sasuke on one side and three grass ninja on the other.

Naruto was not a happy camper; first he had been tied up and then he had been blasted several kilometers back right into a tree. He groaned as he got to his feet and surveyed his surroundings and then he ran, because what was in front of his was a 50-foot snake that thought he would make a good snack. He didn't make it far, the snake wrapped its body around him and swallowed him whole.

It was dark, not to mention slimy. Naruto took back everything bad he had ever said about his old apartment now faced with the belly of this massive snake his ragged couch and cracked walls didn't seem so bad. "Okay you big dummy, use that head of yours and get yourself out of this situation, you have no idea where Sasuke and Sakura are and something tells me they're not having a picnic." He wriggled around, "If I can just get to my sword I can cut my way out of here." He continued to struggle before luck began to shine upon him he managed to get a hand on his sword but he couldn't draw it in this tight space, _'just great'_ "screw this." Naruto wasted no time and drew one of his kunai from his holster strapped to his leg. He made a series of slashes at the snake's belly but soon found it to be futile "that's just great I can't cut through the snake's skin with this it's too thick. Come on Naruto think, you didn't make it this far just to die in the belly of an overgrown lizard." He was just about to give up when Kurama decided to intervene.

 **"Wind Chakra, you idiot. Focus wind around the kunai and it'll be able to cut through the snake's skin."** Naruto's face screwed up in concentration as he tried to remember the advice that Asuma had given him. **"I swear without me you'd be hopeless kid. It's easy just imagine two halves of a rock grinding against the edge of the knife, focus your chakra imagine the wind sharpening and making the edge keen."**

"Thanks I don't know what I would do without you Kurama."

 **"Humph, probably would've died a long time ago without me kid. Just don't ever forget who the smart one is in this relationship not to mention who wears the pants."**

"Oh shut up, now if you don't mind I'm trying to not die in the belly of a snake thank you very much."

 **"Maybe if you didn't rush into every situation you wouldn't be in the belly of the beast so to speak."** Naruto simply ignored him and focused his chakra, _'I'm going to be in a lot of pain later, but right now I don't have a choice.'_ Slowly but surely a faint blue glow began to take shape around the kunai without another thought he trust the knife into the snake and carved a slit up. Wasting no time, he leapt to his freedom, once he was free he ran up the back of the snake and cut off the snake's head.

"Now all I have to do is find Sasuke and Sakura." He began to look around in vain searching for his teammates. When he couldn't find any sign of them in the area he headed back to where he was first attacked by the snake. What he found was a massive cut in the ground ending where he had hit the tree deciding to retrace his steps he found his teammates but the situation was dire.

Sasuke and Sakura stood quietly as the middle stranger took off her straw hat. Upon greater inspection of the woman they found her to be extremely creepy. She wore a simple tan tunic and a purple knot tied at her waist, but that wasn't what set her apart no it was her eyes and tongue. Her tongue would slip out and she would lick her lips with it, her eyes were what were truly upsetting though. They were green and instead of a normal pupil she had slits like some sort of feral animal. She turned to her comrades and spoke,

"Watch the perimeter, I'll deal with them myself" her two goons nodded and sped off into the forest on either side of the chasm she had just created.

Sasuke finally managed to summon up the courage to speak "who are you and what do you want with us?"

"Such a direct child, didn't your parents ever teach you to say please?" Sasuke's face tightened at the mention of his parents.

"You heard him now answer the question!" Sakura was quite pleased with herself, she managed to make that sound intimidating when on the inside she felt like peeing on her tunic.

"What do they teach the genin of this village these days? No manners whatsoever but no matter you don't need to know my name and as for what I want with you…. well let's say I want to play a little game, it's simple if you survive I'll throw in this earth scroll. If you don't…. well I'll put it to you this way only one team will walk away from here and they'll have both scrolls." She stopped for a moment and then put her hand up to her face, she pulled slightly at the skin surrounding her eye and then the nightmare began. What Sasuke and Sakura saw would stick with them for the rest of their lives, they saw their deaths in vivid detail over and over again. Blood stained their eyes it was all that they could see, tortured and bloody they died over and over again. _'Is this genjutsu?'_ Sasuke thought _'no she's doing this with just her killer intent'_ the grass ninja closed her eyes and yet both Sasuke and Sakura remained frozen. "Don't worry I'll make it quick as I'm sure you just saw." She pulled out two kunai and was about to throw them when Sasuke struggled to free a kunai from his side, he finally managed to grasp it and with shaking hands drove the knife into his thigh. It worked like a charm and he snapped free grabbed Sakura and dove into the forest behind him stopping in a tree a little while away from the enemy ninja.

"Are you crazy what were you thinking back there? The wound is deep we'll need to wrap it." Sakura said staring at the small drops of blood leaking out of his leg.

"There's no time, we have to get away before she finds us. Oh man Naruto was right there's no way she's a genin. Her power it's unlike any I've ever felt before," _'she reminds too much of him'._

"A desperate move, but a clever one. He overcame the power of my illusions with pain, clever…. very clever but the prey must do anything to escape its predator." She licked her lips and then ran off into the forest leaping from tree to tree. It wasn't long before she found them Sasuke simply stared at her the kunai he pulled from his leg still dropping blood, Sakura had managed to wrap his leg preventing him from bleeding out. Before they knew it she was in motion but what she did only served to make them want to throw up, the woman began to slither across the trees like a snake her body even elongated confirming what they feared, she was no genin the only question was she human? Sasuke quickly began to back off and soon found himself backed up against a tree trunk with nowhere to run when he was saved. The grass ninja was stopped in her tracks by a cluster of shuriken that stopped her from reaching Sasuke, all three of the looked to the source and found Naruto standing there his sword in one hand gleaming in its red glory and covered in green slime.

"So Naruto you managed to escape my little friend, well done." Naruto tightened his grip on the sword and frowned _'so it was her that sent the snake, probably a summon but what is she exactly. Her chakra is too large and fowl to be a genin and no human should be able to move like that.'_

"Get ready Sasuke, Sakura run the proctor is still at the gate maybe if you can get to her in time we can stay alive long enough to get help. After all your no genin are you Orochimaru?"

"Very well deduced, Naruto-kun. If you don't mind me asking how did you figure that out?"

"You confirmed it when you said that you sent the snake to attack me. Only a summon would obey a ninja and the only known person to hold the Sannin's legendary snake contract was Orochimaru so the only question now is what are you doing here and now?"

"Your very smart to have figured that out on your own Naruto. Been studying history at the library I see."

 _'I never said I had figured it out on my own, Kurama's instincts are spot on as always.'_ "What are you still doing here Sakura our only hope is to find the proctor and warn her."

"But if he is one of the three Legendary Sannin you'll need my help to defeat him. I can't turn away and run away from this fight you remember what Kakashi-sensei taught us don't you?"

"Sakura," it was Sasuke that spoke this time, "this isn't abandoning you comrades, this is giving them the best shot of surviving. Whatever it is Orochimaru needs something from us and he isn't going to risk exposing himself until he gets it. He'll keep playing games with Naruto and I but if you go and get help first we can balance the scales and bring in reinforcements. Now please go!" Sakura was about to turn around when Orochimaru slithered himself from the tree and peeled away the grass ninjas face from his skin,

"What makes you think I'll just let her go?" He leapt after Sakura as she turned around to go get help and was stopped a gleam of red. Naruto had thrown his sword to stop Orochimaru from getting away a moment later he appeared standing on top of the blade facing a way from the snake.

"You might want to stick around Orochimaru" Naruto said as he turned his head "because things are about to get very interesting around here," and his lone visible eye locked on to Orochimaru. It had turned bright red and in the place of a pupil was a slit.

Authors Notes;

Well here it is, I'm so sorry it took so long to put this chapter up but thank all of you for being patient with me. Don't worry chapter 10 is already in progress and because I already have the outline done and I know who is going to fight who in the preliminaries it should write smoother than this chapter. I don't know if you noticed but most of it follows the original pretty closely at least until the fight with Orochimaru. Honestly it was hard trying to include Sakura more as a character in this chapter mostly because all she has is genjutsu taught to her by Kurenai so all she is right now is a back-up character and I didn't want a repeat of the training fight with Kakashi so I sent her on a mission to get help. Mostly she will stay in the background of the fights until her training with the 5th Hokage when she learns how to obliterate mountains. Thanks to everyone for reading and sticking with me until this point and as always remember to review, I can't improve unless you tell me how.


End file.
